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24 March 2023
Issue: 8018 / Categories: Legal News , Commercial , Property
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NLJ this week: Unjust enrichment & the problem with oral agreements

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The Supreme Court decision in Barton v Morris is a landmark case on the interaction between the law of unjust enrichment and the law of contract. 

In this week’s NLJ, Sarah Allan, partner, and Chris Ward, knowledge lawyer, at Pennington Manches Cooper, write that the story behind the case ‘is a paradigm of how things ought not to be done’.

The dispute centred on an oral agreement for one party to act as broker in a commercial property sale. Allan and Ward write: ‘There being no written contract, Judge Pearce had to rely on witness evidence to determine what the parties had agreed some five years prior to the High Court hearing in June 2018.’

The authors look at the case and its implications in detail here.

MOVERS & SHAKERS

Anthony Collins—William Hallett & Lorna Scully

Anthony Collins—William Hallett & Lorna Scully

Anthony Collins hires two talented legal directors

Switalskis—five appointments

Switalskis—five appointments

Firm expands national abuse compensation team

Mathys & Squire—nine promotions

Mathys & Squire—nine promotions

IP firm announces new partners and senior promotions across UK offices

NEWS
Executors may be overlooking billions of pounds in estate assets hidden in forgotten investments and misplaced share certificates
Britain’s booming non-surgical cosmetics market is operating in what some critics describe as a regulatory ‘Wild West’
Family contact disputes are becoming an increasingly prominent feature of Court of Protection litigation
Material obtained through US discovery applications may have a much longer legal life than many litigants realise
English courts are developing a distinctly practical approach to sanctions disputes arising from Russia’s invasion of Ukraine
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