In the 19th century the appellate courts were frequently confronted with plaintiffs seeking damages in respect of fraudulent misrepresentations. The popularity of the action was no doubt attributable to the poverty of the victims’ armoury: damages were not available at that time in respect of negligent misrepresentations; and the remedy of rescission was valueless when, as frequently occurred, the company in which the plaintiff had been induced to invest had gone into liquidation. It was a case of an action in deceit to recover damages from the promoters of the company or nothing at all. Many plaintiffs succeeded despite the strict requirements of the tort, particularly the necessity of proving that the statement was made “knowingly, without belief in its truth or recklessly”.2 The introduction in the 1960s of both a common law3 and a statutory4 action for damages for negligent misrepresentation might have been expected to result in the tort of deceit falling into desuetude. However, this has not been so because the action retains some advantages over its younger rivals. Like the common law action but unlike the statutory one, the tort of deceit permits the recovery of damages when the victim’s loss is caused other than by entering a contract with the representor; and the tort of deceit is characterized throughout by sub-rules which operate in favour of plaintiffs and sometimes seem explicable only on the basis that punitive rather than compensatory aims are being pursued. Indeed a new paradigm may have emerged as several recent cases have remarkably similar facts, each involving fraudulent misrepresentations made by the vendor of a business. Often the business purchased was a modest one and so the cases rarely reach our highest appellate tribunal. Smith New Court v. Scrimgeour Vickers 5 therefore represents a rare opportunity