Blackpool Football Club V Cooper

• Published date: 25 May 2021
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Trials & Appeals & Compensation, Professional Negligence
• Law Firm: Moon Beever
• Author: Edward Saunders

Blackpool Football Club (Properties) Ltd v Cooper & Anor [2021] EWHC 910 (Ch) deals with the circumstances in which the permission of the court is needed to bring proceedings against court appointed receivers. The question arose in proceedings by Blackpool Football Club (Properties) Limited against defendants who had been appointed as receivers over by way of equitable execution, the main allegation being that the receivers had been negligent in the performance of their functions by selling assets at an undervalue.

In 2019, Marcus Smith J approved the receivers' proposal to sell shares in the football club to a purchaser who would acquire the majority of its shares. The sale left a sum outstanding. In December 2019 the relevant parties reached a confidential settlement with the claimant. Immediately thereafter Marcus Smith J heard an application as a result of which he discharged the receivership order. The receivers also sought their discharge from liability which resulted in orders being made as follows:

"5. Other than in respect of matters arising on the Final Account, the Receivers shall be released and discharged from all claims arising out of or in connection with the Receivership on 31 January 2020 unless such a claim is commenced by claim form before that date, or within such longer period as the Court may in its discretion on application allow.

6. The Receivers shall be released and discharged from all claims and issues arising out of their Final Account on 31 January 2020 unless a claim is brought for surcharge and falsification before that date. If a claim is brought for surcharge and falsification the Receivers shall be released and discharged from such claims upon the finalisation of the Final Account or upon such date as the Court may in its discretion direct..."

The claim form in the proceedings against the receivers was issued after the receivers left office.

Snowden J reviewed a substantial body of case law on the issue but considered much of it unhelpful to the circumstances of the case before him because it concerned receivers who were in office at the time: it was well established that permission was needed in such circumstances. Drawing on IRC v Hoogstraten [1985] QB 1077, CA, however, he concluded, citing Dillon LJ, that that was not the case thereafter:

"It is...