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Contact

Contact with chambers should be made through the Practice Management Team. They are happy to discuss client requirements and provide further information on such matters as the expertise and experience of individual members, fees, working practices and languages spoken. We have members able to work in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Greek and Chinese (Mandarin).

Outside working hours, a member of our team is always available to be contacted on matters of an urgent nature. Contact should be made using the Chambers main number or email.

For our Singapore office, for client enquiries please contact our BD Director, Asia Pacific, Lara Quie and for all other queries please contact Lynn Quek. Out of office hours calls will automatically be diverted to our clerking team in London.

London

20 Essex Street
London
WC2R 3AL

enquiries@twentyessex.com
t: +44 20 7842 1200

Singapore

28 Maxwell Road
#02-03 Maxwell Chambers Suites
Singapore 069120

singapore@twentyessex.com
t: +65 62257230

Contact

Contact with chambers should be made through the Practice Management Team. They are happy to discuss client requirements and provide further information on such matters as the expertise and experience of individual members, fees, working practices and languages spoken. We have members able to work in French, German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Swedish, Greek and Chinese (Mandarin).

Outside working hours, a member of our team is always available to be contacted on matters of an urgent nature. Contact should be made using the Chambers main number or email.

For our Singapore office, for client enquiries please contact our BD Director, Asia Pacific, Lara Quie and for all other queries please contact Lynn Quek. Out of office hours calls will automatically be diverted to our clerking team in London.

London

20 Essex Street
London
WC2R 3AL

enquiries@twentyessex.com
t: +44 20 7842 1200

Singapore

28 Maxwell Road
#02-03 Maxwell Chambers Suites
Singapore 069120

singapore@twentyessex.com
t: +65 62257230

13/03/2015

Petrom v Glencore [2016] Lloyd's Rep. 432

This is an archived article, and some links may not work. Contact us if you have any questions.

On 13 March 2015 Judgment was handed down by Flaux J in the long-running and high-profile fraud claim brought by the Romanian oil company OMV Petrom against Glencore (which was listed by The Lawyer magazine as one of the top 20 cases of 2015). 

Petrom’s claim arose out of the delivery by Glencore of oil to Romania in the mid-1990s.  Petrom contended that Glencore systematically defrauded it over a period of about 4 years by delivering blended cargoes of crude oil in the place of the more expensive grades of oil Petrom had contracted for and which Glencore had represented it was delivering.  Petrom claimed as damages the difference between the price paid for the cargoes less the market value of the blends which were delivered to it.     

In an emphatic judgment, Flaux J held that Petrom’s claim succeeded, awarding damages in excess of US$40 million (plus interest).  The Judge held that the individuals who gave evidence for Glencore were “duplicitous witnesses” who were both “knowing participants” in the fraud on Petrom.  So far as the quantum of the claim was concerned, Flaux J rejected Glencore’s submission that the quantum should be measured by reference to the difference in refining yield between the oil which was provided and the oil which should have been provided (which was in the region of US$6 million), as opposed to the difference between the price paid and the market value of the blends which were received (which was in region of US$40 million), on the ground that what Petrom did with the oil after delivery was res inter alios acta.  In this regard, the judgment contains an interesting discussion of the law of damages for deceit, and an analysis of the controversial decision of the Court of Appeal in Bence Graphics v Fasson [1998] QB 87 (a breach of contract case).

Duncan Matthews QC, Andrew Fulton and Luke Pearce appeared on behalf of Petrom, instructed by Withers LLP.      


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