Jordan Kagbara & Ors v Leigh Day Solicitors

Claims arising from a solicitor-client relationship governed by English law may be brought only by, or on behalf of, the relevant clients, subject to any applicable statutory exception. Community membership does not make every member a client or confer standing to enforce those contractual, fiduciary or tortious rights.

Under Nigerian customary law, an individual community member may bring proceedings to protect communally owned property without authority from the community. That principle is principally concerned with communal land. It does not extend to solicitor-client causes of action or settlement monies merely because those matters benefit the community. A properly constituted community council may revoke authority previously delegated to representatives.

The claimants, members of the Bodo Community in Nigeria, brought claims against Leigh Day Solicitors concerning the alleged wrongful deduction and distribution of part of a £20 million community settlement obtained in litigation against SPDC.

The court tried a preliminary issue concerning the claimants’ authority to advance the claims. The claimants relied on alleged authority delegated by the Bodo General Assembly or Council of Chiefs and Elders, and alternatively on a Nigerian customary-law principle permitting community members to protect communal property without authority. Leigh Day disputed both their authority and their locus standi. The central questions concerned the identity of Leigh Day’s clients, the powers and quorum of the Council, revocation of delegated authority, and the scope of the communal-property principle.

The court answered the preliminary issue in the negative. The Eight Claimants had no authority to advance the claims against Leigh Day.

1. Nature of the causes of action. The pleaded claims in contract, fiduciary duty, negligence and misrepresentation arose under English law. The relevant clients were the individuals who instructed Leigh Day in the Community Claim against SPDC, principally the King and members of the Council of Chiefs and Elders. Community membership did not make every indigene a client. The causes of action were therefore vested in, or could be asserted on behalf of, those clients.
2. Governance and delegated authority. The Blueprint permitted the Council to make decisions within its areas of competence, including commencing and conducting litigation, unless inconsistent with a decision of the General Assembly. A binding Council decision required at least 12 members, being two-thirds of the intended 18-member Council. None of the documents relied upon established a valid, quorate decision authorising the claimants.
3. Revocation. If authority had previously been granted, a validly constituted Council retained control over the proceedings and could revoke that authority. The resolution dated 31 January 2024, signed by 14 of the 17 members of the validly appointed Council, was an effective revocation.
4. Communal-property principle. Nigerian law recognises that a community member may sue to protect communal property without authority from the community, even where community leaders oppose the claim. The principle is tied to property held communally under customary law, ordinarily communal land. No evidence established that the settlement money or the English-law causes of action were communally owned in that sense.
5. The principle did not convert the claimants into Leigh Day’s clients, overcome privity of contract, or give them standing to assert the pleaded professional-negligence and fiduciary claims. Nor was Leigh Day barred from challenging their authority or locus. The claimants’ alternative representative case therefore failed.

Consequential orders were to be addressed after judgment.