In a judgment handed down on 29 April 2026, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal in Logix Aero Ireland Ltd v Siam Aero Repair Company Ltd [2026] EWCA Civ 510. Lucy Colter KC acted for the successful respondent. The full judgment can be found here.
By the judgment of Phillips LJ, with whom Cockerill LJ and Peter Jackson LJ agreed, the Court of Appeal upheld the judgment of Mrs Justice Heather Williams DBE [2025] EWHC 1283 (KB) on the issue of causation, finding that the judge had been right to strike out the claims against Siam Aero, on the basis that the fraudsters, inserting themselves in and manipulating the email correspondence (described by Peter Jackson LJ during the hearing as “the fox already in the henhouse“) were the cause of Logix’s loss, not the arguable breach of the confidentiality clause by Siam Aero. The Court of Appeal reviewed the authorities and considered the legal test of causation through cases concerning the intervention of a third party (Galoo v Bright Grahame Murray) and scope of duty (The Achilleas), finding that the intervention of the fraudsters occurred before any assumed breach of contract by Siam Aero; that Siam Aero’s assumed breach was one of a number of necessary stages in the fraud; that the “final stage of deception by the fraudsters and mistaken payment by Logix occurred without any involvement of Siam Aero”, and that “it is a clear case of the breach being part (and only part) of the opportunity for the fraud rather than the cause of the fraud, or otherwise of the fraud destroying the causative potency of the anterior breach.”
The Court also found in respect of the confidentiality cause in this case: “There is no hint that it imposed a special duty to protect the other party from being deceived by fraudsters gaining sight of anodyne or otherwise publicly available information and manipulating it. There is no aspect of the contractual formula that required the Judge to find that Siam Aero remained the effective cause of the loss caused by the fraud.”
The Court also observed that had the case proceeded to trial, Logix’s claim would have faced other significant obstacles, and that Siam Aero could have claimed any liability on its own part was caused by Logix’s own breach of contract, giving rise to a defence by way of circuity of action.
The original claims, struck out in 2025, advanced claims of breach of contract, breach of a confidentiality clause, and apparent authority. The dispute arose after a third party fraudulently impersonated both sides of the transaction, leading the claimant to mistakenly transfer funds to the fraudster.
The judgment brings the actions against Lucy’s client to an end.
Lucy was instructed by Sarah Gabriel and Paul Johnson of Peters & Peters Solicitors LLP
