US governmental authorities, including the US Department of the Treasury, the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, took actions to provide both insured and uninsured depositors of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) (as well as Signature Bank) access to their deposits beginning Monday, March 13. However, despite these actions, many customers are still dealing with the aftermath of an uncertain weekend, and practical questions remain to be answered.
Following the judgments in recent years on attribution to a company of its directors' knowledge in Bilta (UK) Ltd (In Liquidation) v Nazir [2015] UKSC 23 and UBS AG (London Branch) and another v Kommunale Wasserwerke Leipzig [2017] EWCA Civ 1567, the UK Supreme Court has once more returned to this issue in Singularis Holdings Ltd (in Official Liquidation) (a Company Incorporated in The Cayman Islands) v Daiwa Capital Markets Europe Ltd [2019] UKSC 50, in a case where a bank (Daiwa) was held liable for breaching its Quincecare duty of care to its customer,
English courts recognise that shareholders hold a separate legal personality from the body corporate they own a stake in and will only go behind the corporate veil in limited circumstances. In the recent case of Onur Air Taşimacilik AŞ v Goldtrail Travel Ltd (In Liquidation) 1 , the Court of Appeal considered whether the financial means of the appellant’s wealthy controlling shareholder could be taken into account when making an order that the appellant had to make a substantial payment into court as a condition of being able to pursue its appeal.