2024 SCMR 369 SUPREME-COURT-OF-UK

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CANADA SQUARE OPERATIONS LTD VS POTTER Loan agreement and related payment protection insurance policy ("PPI policy") between claimant and commercial lender (defendant)---Lender receiving secret commission and failing to disclose fact and extent of commission payment---Breach of duty by defendant---Concealment of facts---Whether commencement of limitation period for claimant's statutory remedy would be postponed on the basis that facts were "deliberately concealed" by defendant; whether non-disclosure of commission amounted to concealment, and whether recklessness sufficient to establish requisite mental element of deliberateness---Held, that claimants can bring PPI policy "unfair commission" claims against banks, even after the usual six-year time limit has passed, if the bank has "deliberately concealed" facts essential to the pleading of a claim, which meant that the claimant was unable to bring proceedings within the usual time limit---In this regard, the term "deliberate concealment" means that the bank has kept a secret from the claimant, either by taking active steps to hide it or by failing to disclose it---Words "deliberately" and "concealed" must be given their ordinary meanings---To conceal means to keep something secret, either by taking active steps to hide it, or by failing to disclose it---Addition of the word "deliberately" meant that the concealment must be an intended concealment, whether by positive steps or by a withholding of information, but in either case, where the concealment was an intended result---Recklessness was not sufficient---Nor was a mere failure to disclose, unless that failure was a deliberate breach of a legal duty owed by the defendant to the claimant---Existence and amount of the commission were facts that the claimant in the present case needed to know to bring her claim and, as she did not find out about the commission earned by the defendant until shortly before she issued her claim, her claim was brought in time---Claimant's claim was not time barred because section 32(1)(b) of the Limitation Act, 1980 postponed the commencement of the six-year limitation period until November 2018, when the claimant was advised that the premium was likely to have included substantial commission---Defendant had deliberately concealed those facts by consciously deciding not to tell her about the commission---However, the defendant's conduct did not amount to a "deliberate commission of a breach of duty" for the purposes of section 32(2) of the Limitation Act 1980, as the defendant did not intend its failure to disclose the commission to the claimant to render their relationship unfair within the meaning of section 140A of the Consumer Credit Act 1974---Claimant had succeeded in extending the time limit (for her claim) by virtue of section 32(1)(b) of the Limitation Act, 1980---Defendant's appeal was dismissed.

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