A trillion here, a quadrillion there …
… and pretty soon, you’re talking real money (to rework Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen’s apocryphal remark).
The last time I blogged about Citibank, it had made a mistaken overpayment of nearly US$1 billion (their restitution claim was successful on appeal). The same post noted another bank’s mistaken overpayment of US$50 billion (the payee co-operated in the reversal of the transaction). These are staggering numbers. But they pale into insignificance beside a Citibank overpayment in the Irish Times today:
Citigroup erroneously credited client account with $81tn in ‘near miss’
Citigroup credited a client’s account with [US]$81 trillion (€77 trillion) when it meant to send only [US]$280, … The erroneous internal transfer, which occurred last April and has not been previously reported, was missed by both a payments employee and a second official assigned to check the transaction before it was approved to be processed at the start of business the following day.
A third employee detected a problem with the bank’s account balances, catching the payment 90 minutes after it was posted. The payment was reversed several hours later, … No funds left Citi, …
The Guardian put the figure in context:
…Citigroup credited client’s account with $81tn before error spotted
US bank meant to send $280 but no funds were transferred despite ‘fat finger’ mistake
… A transaction of [US]$81tn (£64tn) would be so huge that it would be unlikely to go through any bank’s systems.
How can tort law account for the harm of defamation? One answer to this question is to argue that our reputation is or is like property. While this analogy may make sense to tort law theorists, particularly those seeking to give an internal account of tort law, it may not make sense to property theorists. In addition, it is not clear whether this approach fits with the case law. Whether or not thinking about reputation as property makes sense raises the question of whether tort law theory understands property differently than property theory does. It also raises the question of whether the theory of the tort of defamation fits the case law. In what ways does it make sense to think about reputation as property, and in what ways does it not? 
I have just posted 