Conway v Ratiu [2005] EWCA Civ 1302, [2006] 1 All ER 571 (note), [2005] All ER (D) 103 (Nov) (full decision) English Court of Appeal (Auld LJ gave the lead decision with which Laws and Sedley LJJ agreed)
This report is an extract of 10 paragraphs from a defamation case in which, somehow or other, it was necessary to consider the nature of the solicitor’s fiduciary duty to the client. Lord Millett said in the leading modern English authority on conflicts between duties of confidentiality and of disclosure (that is, current client / past client conflicts) that the fiduciary duty terminates with the retainer, leaving only a duty of confidentiality. That is in a sense the principle taken issue with by Brooking JA in Spincode. Lord Justice Auld noted the principle had been wound back in Hilton v Barker Booth and Eastwood (a firm) [2005] UKHL at [28]-[30], and this proposition from Longstaff v Birtles [2001] EWCA Civ 1219 was cited with approval:
“The source of the [fiduciary] duty is not the retainer itself, but all the circumstances (including the retainer) creating a relationship of trust and confidence, from which flow obligations of loyalty and transparency. As long as that confidential relationship exists the solicitor must not place himself in a position where his duty to act in the interests of the confiding party and his personal interest … may conflict”. Continue reading “Conway v Ratiu: solicitors’ fiduciary duties”
