Partner Mark S. Willis recently published an article in the Financial Times Adviser entitled “Case Law Still Unclear After Barclays and Standard Chartered Judgements,” regarding recent High Court judgements on UK investor actions.  Mark discusses the conflicting outcomes of Barclays and Standard Chartered, which establish the first UK case law on two key issues: proving reliance and dishonest delay.  

In the Barclays case, the justice held that investors need not show that they directly reviewed a defendant’s alleged misrepresentation before investing but at the same time did not allow for pure price reliance, amounting to “reliance based on the share price plus something else.”  The Barclays ruling also held that a company could only be liable for dishonestly delaying the publication of information when it discloses its own malfeasance, perversely incentivizing companies to allow the media or regulators to make such disclosures instead.    

The later Standard Chartered decision, which is currently being appealed, saw the justice refuse to strike out similar reliance-based claims, holding that the issue is better resolved at trial, once all the facts had been established.  Mark notes that following this more shareholder-friendly approach would “allow claimants to fully develop the factual underpinnings of their reliance claims, and preclude defendants from dismissing them early on.”  The ruling also pushed back on the Barclays decision regarding dishonest delay and rejected the defendant’s contention that dishonest delay claims cannot overlap with reliance-based claims.  

A ruling on the Standard Chartered appeal is expected in 2026 and is “eagerly anticipated by both sides, as it will be binding on the various first instance judges and trial courts overseeing the progress of investor actions in the UK.”  While what has recently emerged is a conflicting landscape of case law, “there may soon be actual clarity at an appellate court level on price reliance and dishonest delay claims.”