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On appeal from: [2014] EWCA Civ 1349.

The appellant was the owner of a vessel that had been incapacitated by a flood, and the appeal was whether or not the respondent insurers were entitled to repudiate liability on the ground that the appellants had told a lie in the making of their claim irrelevant to the insurer’s liability. Held: the fraudulent claims rule does not apply to collateral lies, and the appeal was upheld. If a collateral lie is to prevent a claim form being successful it must be “material” to the claim made [cf paras 23-36]. The test being that the collateral lie must at least go to the recoverability of the claim on the true facts found by the court [cf paras 35-36], in this case the lie told by the appellants was not material to the claim made.

For judgment, please download: [2016] UKSC 45
For Court’s press summary, please download: Court’s Press Summary
For a non-PDF version of the judgment, please visit: BAILII

To watch the hearing, please visit: Supreme Court website (16 March 2016 morning session), (16 March 2016 afternoon session), (17 March 2016 morning session), (17 March 2016 afternoon session).