How Knowing is Knowing Receipt?

Extract

Directors of BCCI (Overseas) Ltd. deliberately applied its funds in breach of their duties, and Chief Akindele received those funds. Later, the company, acting by its liquidator, sued Chief Akindele both for knowing receipt of the misapplied funds and for dishonestly assisting their misapplication. The High Court dismissed the claim for dishonest assistance: the company could not prove that Chief Akindele had been dishonest. There was no appeal against this ruling. So at the very beginning of his judgment in BCCI (Overseas) Ltd. v. Akindele [2000] 4 All E.R. 221, which was the only reasoned judgment given in the Court of Appeal, Nourse L.J. stated the key remaining question about the claim for knowing receipt: “What must be the recipient’s state of knowledge? Must he be dishonest?”