Category: Restitution

Restitution of mistaken pension payments, in the news

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| Mistaken payments, Restitution, Restitution

Mary Regan and Anne-Marie Walsh have an interesting story in this morning’s Irish Independent:

Nearly all government ministers owe money to the State due to pension error, with funds to be ‘fully recouped’

Almost all government ministers and junior ministers owe money to the State due to errors in pension payments. They will be informed in the coming days of the sums to be repaid, ranging from as low as €100 up to €30,000.

Although the ministers and other civil servants involved were not at fault in relation to the errors identified in the National Shared Services Office (NSSO), Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers said he will ensure “all monies owed to the State are fully recouped”. …

A brief statement from National Shared Services Office (NSSO) on the issue is here. A rather longer statement from Minister Chambers on the issue is here.

Gavel&CashThis a straightforward case of restitution of mistaken payments. Meanwhile, in preparation for an analysis on this blog, I’ve been re-reading last week’s Supreme Court decision in Bank of Ireland Mortgage Bank v Murray [2025] IESC 24 (04 June 2025). Dunne J (also here) [150] (Murray J concurring) approved the following passage from Charles Mitchell, Paul Mitchell & Stephen Watterson (eds) Goff & Jones on Unjust Enrichment (10th ed, Thomson Reuters, Sweet & Maxwell, London, 2022) [Goff & Jones] §9-163:

It is a long-standing assumption within the law of unjust enrichment that a claimant will not be denied restitution for mistake merely because he was “negligent”.

…

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A trillion here, a quadrillion there …

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| General, Mistake, Mistaken payments, Restitution

1 to one quintillion… 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.

…

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Properly distributing the burden of a debt, and the actual and presumed intentions of the parties: non-theories, theories and meta-theories of subrogation

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| Restitution, Subrogation

Feet in the shoes of anotherBy means of the doctrine of subrogation, one person is substituted for another in the exercise of that other’s rights against a third person. In an oft-repeated (if not always apt) metaphor, the person receiving the benefit of subrogation is said to stand in the shoes of the other as against the third party (eg, Patten v Bond (1889) 60 LT 583 (Ch) 585 (Kay J); In re Bell Lines Ltd [2006] IEHC 188 (28 April 2006) (Dunne J); Lowick Rose LLP v Swynson Ltd [2018] AC 313, [2017] UKSC 32 (11 April 2017) [62] (Lord Mance)). However, the shoes are sometimes an imperfect, even an uncomfortable, fit. So, in Banque Financière de la Cité v Parc (Battersea) Ltd [1999] AC 221, [1998] UKHL 7 (26 February 1998) Lord Hoffmann commented that “the subject of subrogation is bedevilled by problems of terminology and classification which are calculated to cause confusion”, and a great many academic and judicial computer screens have been filled in seeking to allay that confusion. Now comes news of another labourer in the vineyard: Rory Gregson Subrogation and Marshalling (Hart Publishing, 2024); and a very welcome addition to the literature it is too. I am grateful to Hart Publishing for providing me with a pdf download to review here.…

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An overpayment into your bank account is not money for nothing; an overactive ATM does not dispense free money

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| Mistaken payments, Restitution

Cial logoMuch and all as it is fashionable to complain about Google now, sometimes the algorithm gets it just right. Over the weekend, my feed served me this headline: Man who was accidentally paid 330 times his salary quits and disappears (Unilad, 19 July 2024). Perhaps it is not my usual sort of news source, but it is certainly my usual sort of news – it is another example of mistaken overpayments on which I have regularly commented on this blog. As I have observed in that context, many have often adopted the approach of one of the white mice (who were, in fact, hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings) in Douglas Adams‘ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1979): when faced with a choice between doing the right thing, “and on the other hand just taking the money and running, then I for one could do with the exercise”.

That is precisely what the overpaid employee did here. A Chilean meat-producer, Consorcio Industrial de Alimentos (Cial), sent a payment of CLP$165,398,851 (€160,283) to him, instead of his usual salary of CLP$500,000 (€485). It is a bizarre amount of overpayment; usually, a payment is made twice, or additional digits are added to a payment; but there is no obvious connection between the amounts of the salary and the overpayment here; it may be that the larger amount was meant for another account, or that somebody just entered a wrong random number.…

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Settlement in HKR Middle East Architects Engineering LC v English

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| Restitution, Restitution

Abu Dhabi PlazaIn three extensive posts on this blog (here, here, and here), I looked at issues arising out of McDonald J’s judgments in HKR Middle East Architects Engineering LC v English (No 1) [2019] IEHC 306 (10 May 2019); (No 2) [2021] IEHC 142 (3 March 2021); (No 3) [2021] IEHC 376 (31 May 2021). The facts were colourful, and the legal issues were extensive; the subset relevant to this blog included restitution for unjust enrichment by means of a failure of basis (formerly total failure of consideration), the quantification of enrichment, and the potential availability of an automatic resulting trust.

I note from today’s Irish Times that the case has now been settled (with added links):

Settlement reached in Middle Eastern firm’s case against businessman

Matter resolved in out-of-court discussions, judge told

Aodhan O’Faolain

A resolution has been reached in a long-running commercial court action brought by a Middle Eastern engineering and architecture firm against businessman Barry English over alleged unjust enrichment.

The action was launched in 2017 by Hogan Keoghan Ryan Middle East Architects Engineering LLC (HKRME) against Mr English, the founder of Winthrop Engineering, who had denied all the claims against him.

…

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Duress in Contract and Restitution for Unjust Enrichment: Lessons from Mistake

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| Contract, Contract, Restitution

Pressure and mistakeVia Steve Hedley‘s Private Law Theory blog, I am delighted to learn of Charmaine Chang “When a Contract Falls Short: A Special Case for Restitution under Duress in Unjust Enrichment” (2024) 6 City Law Review 30 (CityLR (pdf) | SSRN); the abstract provides

The English law of unjust enrichment deals with situations where it is unjust for someone to receive a benefit without paying for it. Duress is one of the unjust factors that allows for restitution.

The recent approach of the court assumes the same test for duress in contract and unjust enrichment as in CTN Cash and Carry. This is problematic in cases where there are no valid contracts in play. First, this obscures the normative foundation of unjust enrichment. The higher threshold for establishing duress in contract law is justified by its own principles and aims which are not present in unjust enrichment. Second, the existing grounds of recovery that centre on the application of pressure to the claimant and third-party cases in duress show that duress in unjust enrichment is primarily claimant-sided. It is not concerned with the reprehensible conduct of the defendant.

This article argues for a lower threshold to establish duress in unjust enrichment.

…

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

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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.…

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Subrogation – and liens, charges, and other securities – after Promontoria (Oyster) DAC v Kean [2023] IECA 181 (17 July 2023)

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| Restitution, Subrogation

Oysters and GuinnessThe regular reader (thank you!) of this blog will know that I like to add an image at the start of most posts. Sometimes, it takes a while to find something appropriate. When searching for a suitable image for Promontoria (Oyster) DAC v Kean [2023] IECA 181 (17 July 2023), I was reminded that oysters and a pint or two of guinness are a perfect combination. Hence today’s image. As to the case that inspired it, in Promontoria (Oyster) DAC v Kean (noted here), [Kean], Pilkington J in the Court of Appeal, (Costello and Butler JJ concurring), held that the abolition of the creation of security over registered lands by the deposit of a land certificate did not abolish other forms of equitable security.

The time-honoured practice by which security over registered lands could be created by the deposit of a land certificate had been given statutory recognition by section 81 of the Local Registration of Title (Ireland) Act, 1891 and section 105 of the Registration of Title Act, 1964 (also here). However, section 73 of the Registration of Deeds and Title Act 2006 (also here) abolished this practice with effect from 31 December 2009. Any lien by means of holding a land certificate ceased to exist after that date (Promontoria (Oyster) DAC v Hannon [2020] 1 IR 364, [2019] IESC 49 (04 June 2019) confirmed the end of the lien), unless – pursuant to the transitional provision in section 73(3) of the 2006 Act – it was registered as a burden pursuant to section 69 of the 1964 Act (also here).…

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