Bank’s duty of care under freezing order

Customs and Excise Commissioners v Barclays Bank plc [2004] EWCA Civ 155

Although adverse parties to litigation owe no duty to one another unless there is an assumption of responsibility, this does not mean that a bank that holds current accounts subject to a freezing order does not owe a duty to the claimant to comply with those orders. The elements of forseeability and proximity existed and it was fair, reasonable and just that the law should require a bank that received notice of a freezing order to take care not to allow a defendant to flout it. The expression ‘assumption of responsibility’ could be used to describe those circumstances in which the law recognised that a duty of care was present. There was such assumption of responsibility when a bank received notice of freezing orders and the bank’s duty of care arises at that point.