This video is about the Supreme Court decision in Patel v Mirza, which replaced the reliance doctrine in illegality with a "range of factors" approach.
In the High Court, the judge had rejected Mr Patel's claim to recover the sum paid because he had to rely on his own illegality to establish it (Tinsley v Milligan [1994] 1 AC 340 ). The judge held that he could not bring himself within the "locus poenitentiae" exception to that rule since he had not voluntarily withdrawn from the illegal scheme.
In the Court of Appeal the majority agreed with the judge on the reliance issue, but disagreed with him on the application of the locus poenitentiae exception. They held that it was enough for the claim to succeed that the scheme had not been executed.
In the Supreme Court, the majority said that the reliance rule should no longer govern the question of whether private law claims are debarred for illegality.
Instead, the court should consider whether enforcement of the claim would be contrary to the public interest by overt reference to a set of policy considerations.
