Mistake – cearta.ie

… 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.

…

Another Tale of Two Toms – Restitution of Mistaken Payments, and Interceptive Subtraction, again – updated

26 January, 202428 May, 2024

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| Mistake, Mistaken payments, Restitution

Toms: Holland/er

Actor Tom Hollander (imdb | wikipedia | image source) told an anecdote to Seth Meyers on the Late Night tv show (geoblocked NCB clip | YouTube clip), about when he received a bonus payslip meant for actor Tom Holland (imdb | wikipedia | image source). At the time, the two actors shared an agent, who obviously mixed up his own clients, so it’s not a surprise that the rest of us do too. For example, after the casting of Captain America: Civil War (2016 | imdb) was announced, I thought it was a brave decision to have Mr Collins play Spiderman! Hollander’s story relates to one of Holland’s subsequent outings as Spiderman. Hollander told Meyers that he got an email containing Holland’s first box office bonus payslip for The Avengers: Infinity War (2018 | imdb). Hollander said that it was for an “astonishing amount of money”.

Writing in The Guardian, Stuart Heritage commented that this is “a nice little insight into the world where there are too many famous Toms with similar surnames”. Indeed, not only are there too many Toms with the same surnames, sometimes they receive each other’s money, not merely the payslip.…

Some practical perspective on the recovery of misdirected payments

2 August, 20222 August, 2022

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| Mistake, Mistaken payments, Restitution

I’ve written quite a bit on this blog about payors’ rights to recover mistaken payments from recipients. However, a column in today’s Irish Times makes an important practical point about it. A client of bank who had sought to make a payment of €20,000 into his daughter’s account in a different bank. He had the right details, but the payment never arrived in his daughter’s account. Dominic Coyle dispensed his usual sage, common sense, advice, and the banks are now being helpful, so the enquirer and his daughter will probably track down the money. Meanwhile, Dominic added, almost en passant:

By the way, not that it is relevant here, in cases where there has been an Iban error on the part of the person making the payment, repayment will be requested from the inadvertent recipient. However, I am told, somewhat surprisingly, that that depends on the recipient agreeing to the repatriation of the funds. Otherwise you’re apparently looking at legal action which could make your €20,000 look like chips.

So, he’s right that, where there is a mistake, the recipient of the mistaken payment must make restitution of the mistaken payment. However, he’s also right that, if the matter has to be vindicated in court, the costs could be prohibitive (even if, in principle, the costs should follow the event, so that the plaintiff would recover the mistaken payment and also be entitled to costs).…

Samsoondar v Capital Insurance and Surrey Co Co v NHS Lincolnshire CCG – Part 5 – Causes of Action: Compulsion, Mistake, and Voluntariness

22 March, 20214 March, 2024

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| Mistake, Restitution, Restitution

Surrey v NHS Lincs CCG This is the fifth post (in a series of seven; see also parts I, II, III, IV, VI and VII) discussing Samsoondar v Capital Insurance Company Ltd (Trinidad and Tobago) [2020] UKPC 33 (14 December 2020) (Samsoondar) and Surrey County Council v NHS Lincolnshire Clinical Commissioning Group [2020] EWHC 3550 (QB) (21 December 2020) (Surrey). In my first post, I introduced the cases and issues. A claim to restitution for unjust enrichment failed in the first but succeeded in the second. In my second post, I examined whether the defendants were enriched at the expense of the plaintiffs. In my third post, I considered whether compulsory discharge of the debt of another could have provided a cause of action in Samsoondar and Surrey, and whether Surrey could rely upon a policy-motivated cause of action, consisting in the unlawful obtaining or conferral of a benefit by a public authority. In my previous post, I considered whether the mistaken discharge of the debt of another might have been available on the facts of both cases. In this post, I want to consider the effect of voluntariness in the discharge cases.…

The Court of Appeal on Barder v Calouori [1988] AC 20 and common mistake of fact

16 February, 2011

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| General, Mistake, Restitution

Richardson v Richardson [2011] EWCA Civ 79 (08 February 2011)

Lord Justice Munby

The death of the wife

17. There is no need to spend much time on the law. The principles are set out in the passage in the speech of Lord Brandon of Oakbrook in the eponymous case, Barder v Calouori [1988] AC 20, page 43, which is so well-known that it hardly requires quotation.

18. It is well recognised that the unexpected death of one of the spouses can be a Barder event. Barder itself was such a case (wife killed children and committed suicide five weeks after the ancillary relief order). There have been others in which the claim has succeeded: Smith v Smith (Smith and Others Intervening) [1992] Fam 69 (wife committed suicide within six months); Barber v Barber [1993] 1 FLR 476 (wife died of liver disease within three months); Reid v Reid [2003] EWHC 2878 (Fam), [2004] 1 FLR 736 (diabetic wife with high blood pressure died within two months). But it is not enough to show that one of the parties died unexpectedly very shortly after the hearing. What has to be shown, to quote Lord Brandon, is that the death “invalidate[s] the basis, or fundamental assumption, upon which the order was made”.

…