Bankim Thanki KC appeared for the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) in the Court of Appeal (Sir Julian Flaux CHC, Falk and Zacaroli LJJ) in National Iranian Oil Company and Retirement, Saving and Welfare Fund of Oil Industry Workers v Crescent Gas Corporation Limited [2025] EWCA Civ 1211. He led a team including David Mumford KC and James Kinman (Maitland Chambers) and Laura Newton (Brick Court Chambers), instructed by Eversheds Sutherland (International) LLP (Mark Howarth). A copy of the judgment can be found here.
By a majority, the Court of Appeal dismissed NIOC’s and the Retirement Fund’s appeals against the judgment of Sir Nigel Teare, which had held that the transfer by NIOC to the Fund of a property in Central London had been a transaction at an undervalue made for the purpose of putting the property beyond the reach of Crescent Gas Corporation (CGC) for the purposes of section 423 of the Insolvency Act 1986. The judgments address significant points of property, trust and insolvency law, and are the first appellate determination of the question whether a document signed by an agent is capable of constituting evidence of a declaration of trust for the purposes of section 53(1)(b) of the Law of Property Act 1925. The case arises out of a long-running arbitral dispute between NIOC and CGC.
The judgments of the Court of Appeal included a strong dissent by Zacaroli LJ. Unusually, the Court of Appeal has itself granted NIOC and the Fund permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.
