Henderson Chambers team feature in The Lawyer’s Top 20 cases of 2018

Henderson Chambers is pleased to feature in one of The Lawyer’s Top 20 Cases of 2018.

Bates & Ors v Post Office Ltd

“More than 500 current and former postmasters are taking on the Post Office over alleged failures in the electronic point of sales (EPS) and accounting system. The claimants say that this caused false figures to appear in monthly accounts and trigger false losses, which came directly out of employees’ pockets.

The sub-postmasters allege that the failures are so great that they have caused a number of employees to lose their jobs and face prosecution for theft and false accounting.

The group is pursuing the Post Office for around £120m over claims including breach of contract, deceit, negligent mis-statement, economic duress, harassment and malicious prosecution. The claims have already been subject to parliamentary scrutiny.

The four-week trial in the Chancery Division will host novel arguments relating to contract law as the Post Office claims non-liability through contractual terms being “onerous and unusual” so as to not reflect the true agreements between parties. The case will also touch on whether good faith – an ambiguous term – was implied in the contracts.”

Patrick Green QC, Kathleen Donnelly, Henry Warwick and Ognjen Miletic are instructed on behalf of the Claimants by Freeths partner James Hartley.

Read the full details of The Lawyer’s Top 20 Cases of 2018 here (subscription required).