Vicarious liability and reflective loss - 2 December 2020

3PB Head of Chambers David Berkley QC and barristers Seb Oram and Naomi Webber are hosting a webinar on Wednesday 2 December at 11am to review the developments that have taken place with regards to Vicarious Liability and Reflective Loss in 2020.

In this lockdown year the Supreme Court has not been idle. The common law, by nature organic, was, in 2020, significantly developed or at least refined in respect of two key concepts:

First, in Barclays Bank v Various Claimants [2020] UKSC 13 and WM Morrisons Supermarkets plc v Various Claimants [2020] UKSC 12, the Supreme Court revisited the developing jurisprudence surrounding vicarious liability.

Then, in Sevilleja v Marex Financial Ltd [2020] UKSC 31, the Court reconsidered the limits of the reflective loss principle, which had the tendency to preclude claims, where the claimant’s losses flowed purely from those losses sustained by company, typically insolvent.

These decisions are likely to have far reaching consequences and so 3PB is devoting a webinar to provide an articulate and accessible examination of the concepts which underpin the principles and explain the judgments of the Supreme Court.

The webinar is aimed at litigators and those interested in advising claimants who might be seeking to redress for losses when there is no alternative remedy and damages are not recoverable outside the extensions provided by the principle of vicarious liability or the exceptions to the reflective loss principle.

The seminar will be opened by our Head of Chambers, David Berkley QC, who will introduce the principles and then invite Naomi Webber to present her own examination and critique of the Barclays Bank and WM Morrisons judgments. This will be followed by an analysis of Sevilleja undertaken by Seb Oram.

There will then be a moderated discussion, when questions and comments raised during the seminar will be considered.

This event promises to be an excellent opportunity for litigators to raise their awareness of some of the significant developments in the law relating to recovery of damages for civil wrongs.