Royal Brunei Airlines v. Tan

Bank Tejarat v. Hong Kong & Shanghai Banking

Brinks v. Abu-Saleh

In Royal Brunei Airlines Sdn. Bhd. v. Tan 1 a company called Borneo Leisure Travel, founded and controlled by the defendant, Philip Tan, had been appointed by the plaintiffs as their agent to sell their tickets and other services. The contract expressly created a trust in favour of the airline of the monies which the agent company received, subject only to its right to deduct commission. It had nonetheless been in the habit of treating all that it received as its own, merely accounting from time to time to the plaintiffs. It became insolvent. The plaintiffs sought to make Tan personally liable. The Court of Appeal of Brunei held that that claim must fail. Tan had not received the trust money. He could only be made personally liable on the basis of having assisted the admitted breach of trust, and then only if that breach of trust had been dishonest. In fact the breach had been due to mismanagement and bad practice, not to dishonesty. The Judicial Committee took the opposite view of the law. So long as Tan himself had been dishonest, it was not necessary to show that the breach of trust which he dishonestly assisted was itself committed dishonestly.