Attorney General V Blake (Jonathan Cape LTD Third Party)

268
A-G v Blake (HL(E)) [2001 ] 1 AC
House of Lords A
Attorney General v Blake (Jonathan Cape Ltd Third Party)

zooo March 7,8,9; Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, Lord Goff of Chieveley,
July 27 Lord Browne-Wilkinson, Lord Steyn
and Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough
Confidential Information — Breach of confidence — Public interest — Former

Crown servant convicted of espionage publishing autobiography — Use of
information acquired in course of service as secret intelligence officer — Breach
of undertaking not to disclose information without consent — Information no
longer confidential or secret — Whether fiduciary duty owed to Crown not to use
position so as to generate personal profit — Whether royalties and other
payments recoverable by Crown — Whether Crown entitled to restitutionary
damages for breach of contract
Attorney General — Powers and duties — Public interest — Enforcement of criminal
law — Whether Attorney General entitled to injunction in public interest
The defendant was a former member of the Secret Intelligence Service ("SIS")
who in 1944 signed an undertaking not to divulge any official information gained as a
result of his employment. Between 1951 and i960 he disclosed valuable secret
information to the Soviet Union. In 1961 he was convicted of spying and sentenced to D
42 years' imprisonment, but in 1966 he escaped and went to live in Moscow, where
he remained. In 1989 he wrote an autobiography, substantial parts of which were
based on information he had acquired in the course of his duties as an SIS officer. By
section 1(1) of the Official Secrets Act 1989 it was an offence for a person who had
been a member of the intelligence services without lawful authority to disclose any
information relating to intelligence which was in his possession by virtue of his
position as a member of those services. The defendant entered into a publishing E
contract with a publisher under which he was to receive an advance of £50,000, a
further £50,000 on delivery of the final manuscript and £50,000 on publication. The
defendant neither obtained permission from the Crown nor submitted the manuscript
for prior approval, and the Crown had no knowledge of the book until its publication
was announced in the press. After he had already received some £60,000 from the
publisher, the Attorney General brought a private law action against the defendant
claiming damages for breach of fiduciary duty and payment of all moneys received F
and to be received by him from the publisher, on the ground that the defendant owed
the Crown a fiduciary duty not to use his position as a former member of the SIS or
make use of secret or confidential information received during his service so as to
generate a profit for himself. The judge dismissed the action on the grounds that the
lifelong duty owed by members of the security services not to disclose secret or
confidential information acquired during the course of their employment did not
extend to information no longer secret or confidential and the disclosure of which C
would not damage the national interest, that the defendant had not expressly
contracted not to publish any information relating to the intelligence service without
the Crown's prior approval, nor could such an equitable obligation be implied, and
that the breaches of section 1(1) of the 1989 Act did not establish any breach of duty
under the civil law for which the civil remedies sought could be claimed. The
Attorney General appealed, amending the statement of claim to raise issues of public
law and claiming an injunction to restrain the defendant from receiving any payment H
or other benefit resulting from his criminal conduct. The Court of Appeal dismissed
the appeal on the private law issues and held that the defendant was in breach of the
undertaking he signed when he joined the service of the Crown and was therefore in
breach of contract but that since the Crown could not establish loss it was entitled to
no more than nominal damages. However, the Court of Appeal allowed the appeal
269
[2001 ] 1 AC AG v Blake (HL(E))
A on the public law issues and held that, since the defendant was guilty of serious
breaches of the 1989 Act for which he would never be tried or punished but from
which he had and would continue to derive financial benefits, the court's jurisdiction
at the suit of the Attorney General extended to enforcing public policy by ensuring
that a criminal did not retain the profits derived from the commission of a crime, and
accordingly restrained the defendant by injunction from receiving payment from the
exploitation of his book or any information obtained as a member of the SIS.
g On the defendant's appeal—
Held, (1) that, although the injunction restraining the defendant from receiving
royalties was interlocutory in character and was expressed to freeze rather than to
extinguish the defendant's title to the royalties, there was, in the absence of a private
law claim, and in the absence of any realistic prospect of the defendant returning to
the United Kingdom to face criminal proceedings, no event pending which that
money was to be held; that, therefore, the injunction was in substance a confiscatory
r order in that it was envisaged that the defendant would be deprived indefinitely of
his unpaid royalties; that the making of confiscatory orders was strictly controlled
by statute, and the court had no common law power to confiscate property without
compensation; that on the facts of the defendant's case there was no statutory power
to confiscate his property; and that, accordingly, the court had acted outside its
jurisdiction in granting the injunction (post, pp 289E-H, 290B-D, 292E-293B,
294F-G, 296B-C, D-E).
(2) Dismissing the appeal (Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough dissenting), that in
an exceptional case where the normal remedies of damages, specific performance and
injunction were inadequate compensation for a breach of contract, the court could, if
justice demanded it, grant the discretionary remedy of requiring the defendant to
account to the plaintiff for the benefits received from the breach of contract; that the
defendant's undertaking as to confidentiality was closely akin to a fiduciary
obligation where an account of profits was a standard remedy in the event of breach;
that, in order to ensure that there were no financial incentives for other members of
£ the intelligence service to breach their undertakings and to ensure that the morale and
trust between members of the service when engaged in secret and dangerous
operations was not undermined, the Crown had a legitimate interest in preventing
the defendant profiting from the serious and damaging breach of his undertaking;
that therefore, although the information disclosed was no longer confidential, there
were good grounds for imposing an absolute rule against disclosure; and that,
accordingly, in the special circumstances of the intelligence service, and in view of the
F fact that the magnitude of the royalties from the publication of the defendant's
autobiography were attributable to his notoriety as an infamous spy, the just
response to the defendant's breach was that an account of profits be ordered and that
the Attorney General be paid an amount equal to whatever was owed by the
publishers to the defendant (post, pp 284G-285H, 287C-H, 288E-F, 290B-D, 291F-
292E, 293B).
Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798 approved.
C Surrey County Council v Bredero Homes Ltd [1993] 1 WLR 1361, CA
considered.
Decision of the Court of Appeal [1998] Ch439; [1998] 2 WLR 805; [1998] 1 All
ER833 varied.
The following cases are referred to the opinions of their Lordships:

Attorney General v De Keyser's Royal Hotel Ltd [1920] AC 508, HL(E)
H Battishill vReed (1856)18 CB 696
Beswick vBeswick [1968] AC 58; [1967] 3 WLR932; [1967] 2 All ER 1197, HL(E)
Bracewell v Appleby [1975] CI1408; [1975] 2 WLR 282; [1975] 1 All ER 993
British Motor Trade Association v Gilbert [1951] 2 All ER 641
Burmah Oil Co Ltd v Lord Advocate [1965] AC 75; [1964] 2 WLR 12.31; [1964] 2 All
ER 3 4 8,HL(Sc)
270
A C v Blake (HL(E)) [2001 ] 1 AC
Chief Constable of KentvV[i9$)] QB 34; [1982] 3 WLR462; [1982] 3 All ER36, CA A

Gouriet v Union of Post Office Workers [1978] AC 435; [1977] 3 WLR 300; [1977]
3AllER 7 o,HL(E)
Halifax Building Society v Thomas [1996] Ch 217; [1996] 2 WLR 63; [1995] 4 All
ER673,CA
Hogg v Kirby (1803) 8 Ves 215
Jaggardv Sawyer [1995] 1 WLR 269; [1995] 1 All ER 189, CA
jegon v Vivian (18 71) LR 6 Ch App 742 g
Johnson v Agnew [1980] AC 367; [1979] 2 WLR 487; [1979] 1 All ER 883, HL(E)
Lake v Bayliss [1974] 1 WLR 1073; [ r 974] z All ER 1114
Lamine v Dorrell (1705) 2 LdRaym 1216
Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd v Slack [1924] AC 85i,HL(E)
Lever v Goodwin (1887) 3 6 C h D i,CA
Livingstone v Rawyards Coal Co (1880) 5 App Cas 25, HL(Sc)
Malone v Metropolitan Police Comr [1980] QB 49; [1978] 3 WLR 936; [1979] 1 All r
ER2 5 6,CA
Martin v Porter (1839) 5 M 8c W351
Mediana, The [1900] AC 113, HL(E)
Ministry of Defence v Ashman [1993] 2 EGLR 102, CA
Ministry of Defence v Thompson [1993] 2 EGLR 107, CA
Occidental Worldwide Investment Corpn v Skibs A/S Avanti [1976] 1 Lloyd's
Rep 293
Penarth Dock Engineering Co Ltd v Pounds [1963] 1 Lloyd's Rep 359
Photo Production Ltd v Securicor Transport Ltd [1980] AC 827; [1980] 2 WLR 283;
[1980] 1 All ER 556, HL(E)
Reading v Attorney General [1951] AC 507; [1951] 1 All ER 617, HL(E)
Reid-Newfoundland Co v Anglo-American Telegraph Co Ltd [1912] AC 555, PC
Robinson v Harman (1848) 1 Exch 850
Ruxley Electronics and Construction Ltd v Forsyth [1996] AC 344; [1995] 3 WLR
"8;|i995l3AllER268,HL(E) £
Snepp v United States (1980) 444 US 507
Strand Electric and Engineering Co Ltd v Brisford Entertainments Ltd [195 2]
2 QB 246; [1952] 1 All ER 796, CA
Surrey County Council v Bredero Homes Ltd [19931 1 WLR 1361; [1992] 3 All
ER302,CA
Tito v Waddell (No 2) [1977] Ch 106; [1977] 2 WLR 496; [1977] 3 All ER 129;
(Note) [1977] 3 WLR 972 F
Todd v Gee (1810) 17 Ves 273
United Australia Ltd v Barclays Bank Ltd [1941] AC 1; [1940] 4 All ER 20, HL(E)
Watson, Laidlaw & Co Ltd v Pott, Cassels and Williamson (1914) 31 RPC 104,
HL(Sc)
Webb v Chief Constable of Merseyside Police [2000] QB 427; [2000] 2 WLR 546;
[2000] 1 All ER 209
White vJones [1995] * AC 207; [1995J 2 WLR 187; [1995] 1 All ER 691, HL(E) C
Whitwham v Westminster Brymbo Coal and Coke Co [1896] 2 Ch 538, CA
Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798; [1974] 2 All
ER32T
The following additional cases were cited in argument:

Attorney General v Guardian Newspapers Ltd (No 2) [1990] 1 AC 109; [1988]
3 WLR 776; [1988] 3 All ER 545, HL(E) H
Chic Fashions (West Wales) Ltd v Jones [1968] 2 QB 299; [1968] 2 WLR 201; [1968]
IAI1ER229,CA
Chief Constable of Hampshire v A Ltd [1985I QB 132; [1984] 2 WLR 954; [1984]
2A11ER 3 85,CA
Chief Constable of Leicestershire v M [1989] 1 WLR 20; [1988] 3 All ER 1015
271
[2001 ] 1 AC A C v Blake (HL(E))
A IncalvTurkey (1998) 4BHRC476

Lawless v Ireland (No 2) (19 61) 1 EHRR 13
Observer, The, and The Guardian v United Kingdom (1991) 14 EHRR 153
P v Liverpool Daily Post and Echo Newspapers pic [1991] 2 AC 370; [1991]
2 WLR 513; [1991) 1 All ER 622., HL(E)
Portsmouth City Council v Richards and Quietlynn Ltd [1989] 1 CMLR 673, CA
R v Secretary of State for the Home Department, Ex p Simms [2000] 2 AC 115;
S I1999] 3 WLR 328; [1999] 3 All ER 400, HL(E)
Stoke-on-Trent City Council vB& Q (Retail) Lfcf [1984] AC 754; [1984] 2 WLR 929;
[i984j2AHER332,HL(E)
APPEAL from the Court of Appeal
This was an appeal by leave of the House of Lords (Lord Nicholls of
Birkenhead, Lord Hutton and Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough) granted on
C 22 April 1998, by the defendant, George Blake, from a decision of the Court
of Appeal (Lord Woolf MR, Millett and Mummery LJJ) on 16 December
1997, allowing the Attorney General's appeal from a decision of Sir Richard
Scott V-C, who on 19 April 1996 dismissed an action brought by the
Attorney General for a declaration that the Crown was beneficially entitled
to copyright in a literary work entitled No Other Choice; claiming damages
against the defendant for breach of fiduciary duty and infringement of
copyright; and seeking an order for payment to the Crown of all moneys
received or to be received by the defendant from the publishers, Jonathan
Cape Ltd, under a contract entered into between the defendant and the
publishers for the publication of the literary work as moneys by which the
defendant had been or would be unjustly enriched.
The facts are stated in the opinions of their Lordships.
E
Richard Clayton and Natasha Joffe for the defendant. The Attorney
General's power to prevent breaches of the criminal law by injunctions is
derived from the general power of the Attorney General as the guardian of
the public interest to intervene in civil proceedings to protect public law
rights. Such injunctions have typically been sought where the penalties for
committing an offence are insufficient to prevent further crimes. A similar
but more narrowly defined power is conferred upon local authorities: see
Stoke-on-Trent City CouncilvB & Q (Retail) Ltd[1984] AC 754.
The offence alleged against the defendant is the submission of the
manuscript. The information it contains is not confidential and its
disclosure does not damage the public interest. It was expressly conceded
before the Vice-Chancellor that in writing the book the defendant did not
C commit any breach of his duty of confidence. There is therefore no reason to
characterise the submission of the manuscript in itself as a serious criminal
offence. The characterisation should not be affected by the notoriety of the
defendant's convictions in 1961 and his subsequent escape. The receipt of
the moneys by the defendant from writing his book is not a breach of the
criminal law. The Attorney General focuses less on the offence and more on
the defendant's notoriety.
There is no warrant for extending the common law to enable the Attorney
General on public policy grounds to seize the fruits of a criminal offence. It
is not open to a court to create common law powers to take away property
rights. The jurisdiction which purportedly permits chief constables to freeze
the proceeds of a crime pending a possible prosecution does not assist
272
A-C v Blake (HL(E)) [2001 ] 1 AC
the Attorney General. The courts have not identified any basis in law which A
entitles such an injunction to be granted and no power to do so exists.
[Reference was made to Chief Constable of Kent v V [1983] QB 34; Chief
Constable of Hampshire v A Ltd [1985] QB 132; Chief Constable of
Leicestershire v M [1989] 1 WLR 20 and P v Liverpool Daily Post and Echo
Newspapers pic [1991] 2 AC 370.]. The police have no cause of action to
require a bank to pay money over to a chief constable. The power to seize
moneys which have no evidential value involves a considerable extension of
the principles in Chic Fashions (West Wales) Ltd v Jones [1968] 2 QB 299.
The suggestion that the police have a general power to seize goods which are
not stolen or evidence of a crime is inconsistent with Malone v Metropolitan
Police Comr [1980] QB 49.
Only the legislature has power to interfere with property rights.
However, a statute cannot deprive individuals of property rights except by C
clear and unambiguous language: see R v Secretary of State for the Home
Department, Ex p Simms [2000] 2 AC 115. Accordingly, the court cannot
expropriate property unless authorised by statute and cannot override
vested rights by extending the common law to confiscate the proceeds of
crime. The Court of Appeal therefore erred in concluding that it had
jurisdiction to grant the injunction sought.
The grant of the injunction was also an unacceptable restriction of the
defendant's right to freedom of expression. The Crown would have failed if
it had sought to stop publication of the book because there was no question
of confidentiality or harm to the public interest. The fact that there might
have been a criminal offence under domestic law did not deprive the
defendant of that right under the Convention for the Protection of Human
Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1953) (Cmd 8969). Freedom of E
expression is subject to exceptions but they must be construed strictly and
the need for restrictions must be established convincingly. There is no
evidence that in signing the undertaking in 1944 the defendant waived his
right to freedom of expression for the rest of his life.
Section 1(1) of the Official Secrets Act 1989 makes it a criminal offence
for a member of the security services to disclose any information regard-
less of its effect. Section 1(1) is therefore too broad an interference with
freedom of expression and goes further than is necessary to accomplish its
objective of protecting national security. It criminalises disclosure of
information where no damage results and focuses on the status of the person
who makes the disclosure rather than the information. Non-damaging
disclosure by a secret service officer is rendered criminal, whereas under
section 1(3) the identical disclosure by some other Crown servant or c
contractor would not be. [Reference was made to Incal v Turkey (1998)
4 BHRC 476; Lawless v Ireland (No 2) (1961) 1 EHRR 13; Attorney
General v Guardian Newspapers Ltd (No 2) [1990] 1 AC 109 and The
Observer and The Guardian v United Kingdom (1991) 14 EHRR 153.]
To award restitutionary damages for breach of contract so as to reflect
what a defendant has gained from a breach rather than what a claimant has
lost will disturb settled rules of contract law and is wrong in principle. The
restitution principle involves a departure from the principle that contractual
damages compensate a claimant for his loss.
To concentrate on the motive of the party who committed the breach is
contrary to the general approach to the assessment of damages in contract.
273
A It will lead to uncertainty in the assessment of damages in commercial and

consumer disputes where predictability is important. The possibility of a
windfall being awarded to an aggrieved party will discourage economic
activity and has important implications for insurance.
Restitutionary damages do not ensure that those who make contracts will
not break them. Restitutionary damages are awarded after the event and do
not reflect the value the innocent party attaches to the contract. The
restitutionary principle also conflicts with the fundamental freedom of an
individual either to carry out his promise or to pay damages. The duty to keep
a contract means a prediction that you pay damages if you do not keep it, but
nothing else. A perceived injustice cannot be solved by changing the measure
of damages. The principle of compensatory damages is so well established
because it is just that damages are awarded for the actual loss a claimant has
C sustained. [Reference was made to Jaggard v Sawyer [1995] 1 WLR 269;
Surrey County Council v Bredero Homes Ltd [1993] 1 WLR 13 61; Wrotham
Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798; Ruxley
Electronics and Construction Ltd v Forsyth [1996] AC 344 and Reid-
Newfoundland Co v Anglo-American Telegraph Co Ltd [1912] AC 555.]
Ross Cranston QC, Philip Havers QC, Philip Sales and Any a Proops
D for the Attorney General. There is a well established principle in public law
that the Attorney General may seek injunctive relief in the civil courts to
secure the effectiveness and maintain the authority of the criminal law. The
court's jurisdiction to grant a public law injunction must be viewed in the
light of the Attorney General's unique constitutional position as guardian of
the public interest. [Reference was made to Gouriet v Union of Post Office
f Workers [1978] AC 435 and Portsmouth City Council v Richards and
Quietlynn Ltd [1989] 1 CMLR 673.] The jurisdiction extends to preventing
a person from receiving financial benefits directly from an offence he has
committed. The defendant is seeking to profit from his breach of the Official
Secrets Acts and from his criminal conduct as a spy in 1961. There is a
strong public interest in ensuring that individuals who have committed
offences are prevented, whether by criminal or by civil sanctions, from
F
flagrantly disrespecting and flouting the criminal law.
The exercise of the jurisdiction in the present case was not excluded by the
Criminal Justice Act 1988. That Act merely confirmed what was a clear
public policy in relation to the defendant's offences as a spy and a prison-
breaker and under the Official Secrets Acts.
The injunction did not interfere with the defendant's right to freedom of
C expression under article 10 of the Human Rights Convention. The freezing
of the royalties from the book did not prevent the defendant from holding
opinions or imparting information and ideas. The defendant has already
been paid £60,000 in royalties which cannot be recovered from him. In any
event, in joining the Secret Intelligence Service the defendant assumed, as a
term of his employment, an obligation not to disclose any information which
came to him in his official capacity. That is clear from the Official Secrets
Act 1911 and the undertaking he signed in 1944. An individual who has
contracted out of his right to freedom of expression cannot rely on
article 10 to complain of interference with that right.
If there was interference with the defendant's right under article 10, that
interference was lawful because (1) it was prescribed in a national law which
274
AG v Blake (HL(E)) [2001 ] 1 AC
was accessible to the public and the application of which to conduct such as A
the defendant's was sufficiently foreseeable and (2) it was necessary in a
democratic society for the prevention of crime and disorder and/or the
protection of morals (i e, there was a pressing social need for it) and it was
proportionate to the legitimate aim of ensuring that the defendant was not
free to profit from his crime.
Section 1(1) of the 1989 Act is not incompatible with article 10, nor is it s
disproportionate in its application. In a prosecution under section 1(1) it
would be difficult to prove damage without compounding the damage
created by the original disclosure. If there were a requirement to prove
damage the Crown would be faced with the invidious choice between
prosecuting and jeopardising an operation or the lives of informers and not
prosecuting and allowing the member or former member to escape
c
punishment. It is legitimate in terms of article 10 for the legislature to
choose a formulation of an offence which gives national security actual and
effective protection rather than theoretical and illusory protection.
Section 1(1) only forbids disclosure without lawful authority so that the
authorities can relax the application of section 1 (1) in appropriate cases.
As a general rule the measure of damages for breach of contract is
compensatory rather than restitutionary, so that the claimant will have his o
damages assessed by reference to the loss sustained, not to the profit made by
the defendant as a result of his wrongful act.
However, compensatory damages will be inadequate in circumstances
where the innocent party's objective in entering into the contract cannot be
achieved unless it is performed. In those circumstances restitutionary
damages should be awarded to protect the interests which the innocent party
bargained for. Justification for such damages is strongest where profits are
obtained by the contract-breaker directly as a result of his having done the
very thing which he contracted not to do. The contract-breaker should then
be stripped of his profits. [Reference was made to Snepp v United States
(1980) 444 US 507; Tito v Waddell (No 2) [1977] Ch 106; Lake v Bayliss
[1974] 1 WLR 1073 and British Motor Trade Association v Gilbert [1951]
2 All ER 641.] F
Commercial uncertainty cannot justify a denial of restitutionary damages
in cases which fall within a clear category. On the contrary, explicit
recognition of that category, and the clear articulation of the criteria
according to which cases fall within it, could only improve commercial
certainty, in the light of the pressure which courts feel to award what are in
reality restitutionary damages while characterising them, implausibly, as Q
compensatory.
The victim of a criminal act will be entitled to a restitutionary remedy
where the benefit gained by the criminal, for example the royalties of a book,
is the product of the wrongful act and the benefit has been gained at what is
broadly to be described as the victim's expense. It would be morally
obnoxious that, where a profit has been obtained as a result of criminally
inflicting harm, it is the criminal rather than the victim who should enjoy the
profits.
A condition for awarding restitutionary damages is the existence of a
causal relationship between the profits and the criminal act: but for the
criminal act the profits would not have accrued. The criminal act should
275
Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead
A have caused harm to an identifiable victim. Those conditions are met in the
present case.
The argument for restitution is particularly strong in the present case
because it is the Crown which is the claimant. The duty not to commit
criminal wrongs is owed first and foremost to the state and not to the
individual.
The fact that Parliament has legislated for the granting of confiscation
orders which strip a person of the profits of his crime does not militate
against the existence of a jurisdiction to make a restitutionary order in
favour of the victim.
Clayton replied.
Their Lordships took time for consideration.
C
27 July. LORD NICHOLLS OF BIRKENHEAD. My Lords, George
Blake is a notorious, self-confessed traitor. He was employed as a member
of the security and intelligence services for 17 years, from 1944 to 1961. In
1951 he became an agent for the Soviet Union. From then until i960 he
disclosed valuable secret information and documents gained through his
employment. On 3 May 1961 he pleaded guilty to five charges of unlawfully
communicating information contrary to section I ( I ) ( C ) of the Official
Secrets Act 1911. He was sentenced to 42 years' imprisonment. This
sentence reflected the extreme gravity of the harm brought about by his
betrayal of secret information.
In 1966 Blake escaped from Wormwood Scrubs prison and fled to Berlin
and then to Moscow. He is still there, a fugitive from justice. In 1989 he
f wrote his autobiography. Certain parts of the book related to his activities as
a secret intelligence officer. By 1989 the information in the book was no
longer confidential, nor was its disclosure damaging to the public interest.
On 4 May 1989 Blake entered into a publishing contract with Jonathan
Cape Ltd. He granted Jonathan Cape an exclusive right to publish the book
in this country in return for royalties. Jonathan Cape agreed to pay him
advances against royalties: £50,000 on signing the contract, a further
F
£50,000 on delivery of the manuscript, and another £50,000 on publication.
Plainly, had Blake not been an infamous spy who had also dramatically
escaped from prison, his autobiography would not have commanded
payments of this order.
The book, entitled No Other Choice, was published on 17 September
1990. Neither the security and intelligence services nor any other branch of
Q the Government were aware of the book until its publication was
announced. Blake had not sought any prior authorisation from the Crown
to disclose any of the information in the book relating to the Secret
Intelligence Service. Jonathan Cape has, apparently, already paid Blake
about £60,000 under the publishing agreement. In practice that money is
irrecoverable. A further substantial amount, in the region of £90,000,
remains payable. These proceedings concern this unpaid money.
H
The proceedings
On 24 May 1991 the Attorney General commenced an action against
Blake, with a view to ensuring he should not enjoy any further financial
fruits from his treachery. The writ and statement of claim sought relief on a
276
variety of grounds. The trial took place before Sir Richard Scott V-C. Blake A
was not represented at the trial. He had sought unsuccessfully to have access
to the further money due and owing to him by the publisher for the purpose
of funding his defence. He was refused legal aid. But the court had the
assistance of leading and junior counsel as amici curiae. At the trial the
Crown rested its claim exclusively on one cause of action: that in writing
the book and authorising its publication Blake was in breach of fiduciary „
duties he owed the Crown. Sir Richard Scott V-C rejected this claim and
dismissed the action [1997] Ch 84. The Vice-Chancellor accepted that
former members of the intelligence and security services owed a lifelong duty
of non-disclosure in respect of secret and confidential information. But the
law did not impose a duty which went beyond this.
The Crown appealed. Blake was not represented on the hearing of the
appeal but, once again, the court had the assistance of leading and junior C
counsel as amici curiae. The Court of Appeal, comprising Lord Woolf MR,
Millett and Mummery LJJ, allowed the appeal [1998] Ch 439. The court
upheld Sir Richard Scott V-C's ruling on the breach of fiduciary claim. On
this appeal to your Lordships' House the Attorney General has not sought to
challenge that decision. However, the Court of Appeal permitted the
Attorney General to amend his statement of claim and advance a public law D
claim. In making this claim the Attorney General asserted, not a private law
right on behalf of the Crown, but a claim for relief in his capacity as
guardian of the public interest. In this latter capacity the Attorney General
may, exceptionally, invoke the assistance of the civil law in aid of the
criminal law. Typically this occurs where an offence is frequently repeated in
disregard of an inadequate penalty: see Gouriet v Union of Post Office
Workers [1978] AC 435. In the present case Blake's disclosure of the E
information in his autobiography to his publishers was a breach of
section 1(1) of the Official Secrets Act 1989:
"A person who is or has been . . . a member of the security and
intelligence services . . . is guilty of an offence if without lawful authority
he discloses any information . . . relating to security or intelligence which
F
is or has been in his possession by virtue of his position as a member of
any of those services . . ."
If Blake's disclosure occurred before this Act came into force on
1 March 1990, the disclosure was an offence under comparable provisions in
section z( 1) of the Official Secrets Act 1911. The Court of Appeal held that
the jurisdiction of the civil courts, on an application of the Attorney General,
was not limited to granting an injunction restraining the commission or
repeated commission of an offence. Lord Woolf MR said [1998] Ch 439,
462:
"If, as here, a criminal offence has already been committed, the
jurisdiction extends to enforcing public policy with respect to the
consequences of the commission of that crime, eg restraining receipt by
the criminal of a further benefit as a result of or in connection with that
crime . . . This is an exceptional case in which the Attorney General is
entitled to intervene by instituting civil proceedings, in aid of the criminal
law, to uphold the public policy of ensuring that a criminal does not retain
profit directly derived from the commission of his crime."
277
A The court made an order in the following terms:

"That the defendant George Blake be restrained until further order
from receiving or from authorising any person to receive on his behalf any
payment or other benefit resulting from or in connection with the
exploitation of No Other Choice in any form or any information therein
relating to security and intelligence which is or has been in his possession
g by virtue of his position as a member of the Secret Intelligence Service."
Blake appealed against this decision of the Court of Appeal. On the
hearing of this appeal by your Lordships he was represented by counsel and
solicitors acting pro bono. I wish to pay tribute to the thoroughness with
which counsel and solicitors prepared the appeal and the expertise with
which Mr Clayton presented it to your Lordships.
c
The private law claim
In the course of his judgment [1998] Ch 439, 455-459 Lord Woolf MR
made some interesting observations on a matter which had not been the
subject of argument either in the Court of Appeal or before Sir Richard Scott
V-C. The point arose out of the amendments made to the statement of claim
in the course of the proceedings in the Court of Appeal. On 16 August 1944
D Blake signed an Official Secrets Act declaration. This declaration included
an undertaking:
" . . . I undertake not to divulge any official information gained by me
as a result of my employment, either in the press or in book form. I also
understand that these provisions apply not only during the period of
service but also after employment has ceased."
£ This undertaking was contractually binding. Had Blake not signed it he
would not have been employed. By submitting his manuscript for
publication without first obtaining clearance Blake committed a breach of
this undertaking. The Court of Appeal suggested that the Crown might have
a private law claim to "restitutionary damages for breach of contract", and
invited submissions on this issue. The Attorney General decided that the
Crown did not wish to advance argument on this point in the Court of
Appeal. The Attorney General, however, wished to keep the point open for
a higher court. The Court of Appeal expressed the view, necessarily tentative
in the circumstances, that the law of contract would be seriously defective if
the court were unable to award restitutionary damages for breach of
contract. The law is now sufficiently mature to recognise a restitutionary
claim for profits made from a breach of contract in appropriate situations.
C These include cases of "skimped" performance, and cases where the
defendant obtained his profit by doing "the very thing" he contracted not to
do. The present case fell into the latter category: Blake earned his profit by
doing the very thing he had promised not to do.
This matter was pursued in your Lordships' House. Prompted by an
invitation from your Lordships, the Attorney General advanced an
argument that restitutionary principles ought to operate to enable the
Crown to recover from Blake his profits arising from his breach of contract.
It will be convenient to consider this private law claim first.
This is a subject on which there is a surprising dearth of judicial decision.
By way of contrast, over the last 20 years there has been no lack of academic
writing. This includes valuable comment on the Court of Appeal dicta in the
278
present case: by Janet O'Sullivan, "Reflections on the Role of Restitutionary A

Damages to protect contractual expectations" (to be published), and
Catherine Mitchell, "Remedial Inadequacy in Contract and the Role of
Restitutionary Damages" (1999) 15 JCL 133. Most writers have favoured
the view that in some circumstances the innocent party to a breach of
contract should be able to compel the defendant to disgorge the profits he
obtained from his breach of contract. However, there is a noticeable absence
of any consensus on what are the circumstances in which this remedy should
be available. Professor Burrows has described this as a devilishly difficult
topic: see "No Restitutionary Damages for Breach of Contract" [1993]
LMCLQ 453. The broad proposition that a wrongdoer should not be
allowed to profit from his wrong has an obvious attraction. The corollary is
that the person wronged may recover the amount of this profit when he has
suffered no financially measurable loss. As Glidewell LJ observed in Halifax c
Building Society v Thomas [1996] Ch 217, 229, the corollary is not so
obviously persuasive. In these choppy waters the common law and equity
steered different courses. The effects of this are still being felt.
Interference with rights of property

So I turn to established, basic principles. I shall first set the scene by D
noting how the court approaches the question of financial recompense for
interference with rights of property. As with breaches of contract, so with
tort, the general principle regarding assessment of damages is that they are
compensatory for loss or injury. The general rule is that, in the oft quoted
words of Lord Blackburn, the measure of damages is to be, as far as possible,
that amount of money which will put the injured party in the same position
he would have been in had he not sustained the wrong: Livingstone v E
Rawyards Coal Co (1880) 5 App Cas 25, 39. Damages are measured by the
plaintiff's loss, not the defendant's gain. But the common law, pragmatic as
ever, has long recognised that there are many commonplace situations where
a strict application of this principle would not do justice between the parties.
Then compensation for the wrong done to the plaintiff is measured by a
different yardstick. A trespasser who enters another's land may cause the
landowner no financial loss. In such a case damages are measured by the
benefit received by the trespasser, namely, by his use of the land. The same
principle is applied where the wrong consists of use of another's land for
depositing waste, or by using a path across the land or using passages in an
underground mine. In this type of case the damages recoverable will be, in
short, the price a reasonable person would pay for the right of user: see
Whitwham v Westminster Brymbo Coal and Coke Co [1896] 2 Ch 538, and C
the "wayleave" cases such as Martin v Porter (1839) 5 M & W 351 and
Jegon v Vivian (1871) LR 6 ChApp 742. A more recent example was the
non-removal of a floating dock, in Penarth Dock Engineering Co Ltd v
Pounds [1963] 1 Lloyd's Rep 359.
The same principle is applied to the wrongful detention of goods. An
instance is the much cited decision of the Court of Appeal in Strand Electric
and Engineering Co Ltd v Brisford Entertainments Ltd [1952] 2 QB 246,
concerning portable switchboards. But the principle has a distinguished
ancestry. The Earl of Halsbury LC famously asked in The Mediana [1900]
AC 113,117, that if a person took away a chair from his room and kept it for
12 months, could anybody say you had a right to diminish the damages by
279
[2001 ] 1 AC A-C v Blake (HL(E))
A showing that I did not usually sit in that chair, or that there were plenty of
other chairs in the room? To the same effect was Lord Shaw's telling
example in Watson, Laidlaw & Co Ltd v Pott, Cassels and Williamson
(1914) 31 RPC 104,119. It bears repetition:
"If A, being a liveryman, keeps his horse standing idle in the stable, and
B, against his wish or without his knowledge, rides or drives it out, it is no
6 answer to A for B to say: 'Against what loss do you want to be restored?
I restore the horse. There is no loss. The horse is none the worse; it is the
better for the exercise.'"
Lord Shaw prefaced this observation with a statement of general principle:
"wherever an abstraction or invasion of property has occurred, then,
unless such abstraction or invasion were to be sanctioned by law, the law
ought to yield a recompense under the category or principle . . . either of
price or of hire."
That was a patent infringement case. The House of Lords held that damages
should be assessed on the footing of a royalty for every infringing article.
This principle is established and not controversial. More difficult is the
alignment of this measure of damages within the basic compensatory
measure. Recently there has been a move towards applying the label of
restitution to awards of this character: see, for instance, Ministry of
Defence v Ashman [1993] 2 EGLR 102., 105 and Ministry of Defence v
Thompson [1993] 2 EGLR 107. However that may be, these awards cannot
be regarded as conforming to the strictly compensatory measure of damage
for the injured person's loss unless loss is given a strained and artificial
£ meaning. The reality is that the injured person's rights were invaded but, in
financial terms, he suffered no loss. Nevertheless the common law has found
a means to award him a sensibly calculated amount of money. Such awards
are probably best regarded as an exception to the general rule.
Courts of equity went further than the common law courts. In some cases
equity required the wrongdoer to yield up all his gains. In respect of certain
wrongs which originally or ordinarily were the subject of proceedings in the
Court of Chancery, the standard remedies were injunction and, incidental
thereto, an account of profits. These wrongs included passing off,
infringement of trade marks, copyrights and patents, and breach of
confidence. Some of these subjects are now embodied in statutory codes. An
injunction restrained the continuance of the wrong, and the wrongdoer was
required to account for the profits or benefits he had obtained from breaches
C or infringements which had already occurred. The court always had a
discretion regarding the grant of the remedy of an account of profits, and
this remains the position. Further, the circumstances in which an account of
profits is available under the statutes vary. For instance, an account of profits
may not be ordered against a defendant in a patent infringement action who
proves that at the date of the infringement he was not aware, and had no
reasonable grounds for supposing, that the patent existed: Patents Act 1977,
section 62(1).
In these cases the courts of equity appear to have regarded an injunction
and account of profits as more appropriate remedies than damages
because of the difficulty of assessing the extent of the loss. Thus, in 1803
Lord Eldon LC stated, in Hogg v Kirby, 8 Ves 215, 223, a passing off case:
280
"what is the consequence in law and in equity? . . . a court of equity in A

these cases is not content with an action for damages; for it is nearly
impossible to know the extent of the damage; and therefore the remedy
here, though not compensating the pecuniary damage except by an
account of profits, is the best: the remedy by an injunction and account."
Whether this justification for ordering an account of profits holds good
factually in every case must be doubtful. Be that as it may, in these types of B
case equity considered that the appropriate response to the violation of the
plaintiff's right was that the defendant should surrender all his gains, and
that he should do so irrespective of whether the violation had caused the
plaintiff any financially measurable loss. Gains were to be disgorged even
though they could not be shown to correspond with any disadvantage
suffered by the other party. This lack of correspondence was openly
acknowledged. In Lever v Goodwin (1887) 36 ChD 1, 7, Cotton LJ stated it
was "well known" that in trade mark and patent cases the plaintiff was
entitled, if he succeeded in getting an injunction, to take either of two forms
of relief: he might claim from the defendant either the damage he had
sustained from the defendant's wrongful act or the profit made by the
defendant from the defendant's wrongful act.
Considered as a matter of principle, it is difficult to see why equity D
required the wrongdoer to account for all his profits in these cases, whereas
the common law's response was to require a wrongdoer merely to pay a
reasonable fee for use of another's land or goods. In all these cases rights of
property were infringed. This difference in remedial response appears to
have arisen simply as an accident of history.
In some instances the common law itself afforded a wronged party a
choice of remedies. A notable example is the wrong of conversion. A person
whose goods were wrongfully converted by another had a choice of two
remedies against the wrongdoer. He could recover damages, in respect of the
loss he had sustained by the conversion. Or he could recover the proceeds of
the conversion obtained by the defendant: see United Australia Ltd v
Barclays Bank Ltd [1941] AC 1, 34, per Lord Romer. Historically, the latter
alternative was achieved by recourse to an element of legal fiction, whereby F
the innocent party "waived the tort". The innocent party could suppose that
the wrongful sale had been made with his consent and bring an action for
money "had and received to his use": see Lamine v Dorrell (1705) 2 Ld Raym
12.16,1217. Holt CJ observed that these actions had "crept in by degrees".
Breach of trust and fiduciary duty r
I should refer briefly to breach of trust and breach of fiduciary duty.

Equity reinforces the duty of fidelity owed by a trustee or fiduciary by
requiring him to account for any profits he derives from his office or
position. This ensures that trustees and fiduciaries are financially
disinterested in carrying out their duties. They may not put themselves in a
position where their duty and interest conflict. To this end they must not
make any unauthorised profit. If they do, they are accountable. Whether the
beneficiaries or persons to whom the fiduciary duty is owed suffered any loss
by the impugned transaction is altogether irrelevant. The accountability of
the army sergeant in Reading v Attorney General [1951] AC 507 is a familiar
application of this principle to a servant of the Crown.
281
A Damages under Lord Cairns's Act

I must also mention the jurisdiction to award damages under section z of
the Chancery Amendment Act 1858 (21 & 22 Vict c 27), commonly known
as Lord Cairns's Act. This Act has been repealed but the jurisdiction
remains. Section 2 empowered the Court of Chancery at its discretion, in all
cases where it had jurisdiction to entertain an application for an injunction
6 or specific performance, to award damages in addition to or in substitution
for an injunction or specific performance. Thus section 2 enabled the Court
of Chancery, sitting at Lincoln's Inn, to award damages when declining to
grant equitable relief rather than, as had been the practice since Lord Eldon's
decision in Todd v Gee (1810) 17 Ves 273, sending suitors across London to
the common law courts at Westminster Hall.
Lord Cairns's Act had a further effect. The common law courts'
jurisdiction to award damages was confined to loss or injury flowing from a
cause of action which had accrued before the writ was issued. Thus in the
case of a continuing wrong, such as maintaining overhanging eaves and
gutters, damages were limited to the loss suffered up to the commencement
of the action: see Battishill v Reed (1856) 18 CB 696. Lord Cairns's Act
liberated the courts from this fetter. In future, if the court declined to grant
D an injunction, which had the effect in practice of sanctioning the indefinite
continuance of a wrong, the court could assess damages to include losses
likely to follow from the anticipated future continuance of the wrong as well
as losses already suffered. The power to give damages in lieu of an
injunction imported the power to give an equivalent for what was lost by the
refusal of an injunction: see Leeds Industrial Co-operative Society Ltd v
r- Slack [1924] AC 851, 859, per Viscount Finlay. It is important to note,
however, that although the Act had the effect of enabling the court in this
regard to award damages in respect of the future as well as the past, the Act
did not alter the measure to be employed in assessing damages: see Johnson v
Agnew [1980] AC 367,400, per Lord Wilberforce. Thus, in the same way as
damages at common law for violations of a property right may by measured
by reference to the benefits wrongfully obtained by a defendant, so under
F
Lord Cairns' Act damages may include damages measured by reference to
the benefits likely to be obtained in future by the defendant. This approach
has been adopted on many occasions. Recent examples are Bracewell v
Appleby [1975] Ch 408 and Jaggard v Sawyer [1995] 1 WLR 269, both
cases concerned with access to a newly-built house over another's land.
The measure of damages awarded in this type of case is often analysed as
Q damages for loss of a bargaining opportunity or, which comes to the same,
the price payable for the compulsory acquisition of a right. This analysis is
correct. The court's refusal to grant an injunction means that in practice the
defendant is thereby permitted to perpetuate the wrongful state of affairs he
has brought about. But this analysis takes the matter now under discussion
no further forward. A property right has value to the extent only that the
court will enforce it or award damages for its infringement. The question
under discussion is whether the court will award substantial damages for an
infringement when no financial loss flows from the infringement and,
moreover, in a suitable case will assess the damages by reference to the
defendant's profit obtained from the infringement. The cases mentioned
above show that the courts habitually do that very thing.
1 AC z o o 1—11
282
Breach of contract A
Against this background I turn to consider the remedies available for
breaches of contract. The basic remedy is an award of damages. In the
much quoted words of Baron Parke, the rule of the common law is that
where a party sustains a loss by reason of a breach of contract, he is, so far as
money can do it, to be placed in the same position as if the contract had been
performed: Robinson v Harman (1848) 1 Exch 850, 855. Leaving aside the g
anomalous exception of punitive damages, damages are compensatory.
That is axiomatic. It is equally well established that an award of damages,
assessed by reference to financial loss, is not always "adequate" as a remedy
for a breach of contract. The law recognises that a party to a contract may
have an interest in performance which is not readily measurable in terms of
money. On breach the innocent party suffers a loss. He fails to obtain the
c
benefit promised by the other party to the contract. To him the loss may be
as important as financially measurable loss, or more so. An award of
damages, assessed by reference to financial loss, will not recompense him
properly. For him a financially assessed measure of damages is inadequate.
The classic example of this type of case, as every law student knows, is a
contract for the sale of land. The buyer of a house may be attracted by
features which have little or no impact on the value of the house. An award D
of damages, based on strictly financial criteria, would fail to recompense a
disappointed buyer for this head of loss. The primary response of the law to
this type of case is to ensure, if possible, that the contract is performed in
accordance with its terms. The court may make orders compelling the party
who has committed a breach of contract, or is threatening to do so, to carry
out his contractual obligations. To this end the court has wide powers to
grant injunctive relief. The court will, for instance, readily make orders for E
the specific performance of contracts for the sale of land, and sometimes it
will do so in respect of contracts for the sale of goods. In Beswick v Beswick
[1968] AC 58 the court made an order for the specific performance of a
contract to make payments of money to a third party. The law recognised
that the innocent party to the breach of contract had a legitimate interest in
having the contract performed even though he himself would suffer no F
financial loss from its breach. Likewise, the court will compel the observance
of negative obligations by granting injunctions. This may include a
mandatory order to undo an existing breach, as where the court orders the
defendant to pull down building works carried out in breach of covenant.
All this is trite law. In practice, these specific remedies go a long way
towards providing suitable protection for innocent parties who will suffer
loss from breaches of contract which are not adequately remediable by an C
award of damages. But these remedies are not always available. For
instance, confidential information may be published in breach of a non-
disclosure agreement before the innocent party has time to apply to the court
for urgent relief. Then the breach is irreversible. Further, these specific
remedies are discretionary. Contractual obligations vary infinitely. So do
the circumstances in which breaches occur, and the circumstances in which
remedies are sought. The court may, for instance, decline to grant specific
relief on the ground that this would be oppressive.
An instance of this nature occurred in Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v
Parkside Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798. For social and economic reasons
the court refused to make a mandatory order for the demolition of houses
283
A built on land burdened with a restrictive covenant. Instead,

Brightman J made an award of damages under the jurisdiction which
originated with Lord Cairns's Act. The existence of the new houses did not
diminish the value of the benefited land by one farthing. The judge
considered that if the plaintiffs were given a nominal sum, or no sum, justice
would manifestly not have been done. He assessed the damages at 5% of the
developer's anticipated profit, this being the amount of money which could
reasonably have been demanded for a relaxation of the covenant.
In reaching his conclusion the judge applied by analogy the cases
mentioned above concerning the assessment of damages when a defendant
has invaded another's property rights but without diminishing the value of
the property. I consider he was right to do so. Property rights are superior to
contractual rights in that, unlike contractual rights, property rights may
C survive against an indefinite class of persons. However, it is not easy to see
why, as between the parties to a contract, a violation of a party's contractual
rights should attract a lesser degree of remedy than a violation of his
property rights. As Lionel D Smith has pointed out in his article
"Disgorgement of the profits of Breach of Contract: Property, Contract and
'Efficient Breach' " (1995) 24 Can BLJ I Z I , it is not clear why it should be
any more permissible to expropriate personal rights than it is permissible to
expropriate property rights.
I turn to the decision of the Court of Appeal in Surrey County Council v
Bredero Homes Ltd [1993] 1 WLR 1361. A local authority had sold surplus
land to a developer and obtained a covenant that the developer would
develop the land in accordance with an existing planning permission. The
sole purpose of the local authority in imposing the covenant was to enable it
E to share in the planning gain if, as happened, planning permission was
subsequently granted for the erection of a larger number of houses. The
purpose was that the developer would have to apply and pay for a relaxation
of the covenant if it wanted to build more houses. In breach of covenant the
developer completed the development in accordance with the later planning
permission, and the local authority brought a claim for damages. The
erection of the larger number of houses had not caused any financial loss to
the local authority. The judge awarded nominal damages of £2., and the
Court of Appeal dismissed the local authority's appeal.
This is a difficult decision. It has attracted criticism from academic
commentators and also in judgments of Sir Thomas Bingham MR and
Millett LJ in Jaggard v Sawyer [1995] 1 WLR 269. I need not pursue the
detailed criticisms. In the Bredero case Dillon LJ himself noted, at p 1364,
C that had the covenant been worded differently, there could have been
provision for payment of an increased price if a further planning permission
were forthcoming. That would have been enforceable. But, according to the
Bredero decision, a covenant not to erect any further houses without
permission, intended to achieve the same result, may be breached with
impunity. That would be a sorry reflection on the law. Suffice to say, in so
far as the Bredero decision is inconsistent with the approach adopted in the
Wrotham Park case, the latter approach is to be preferred.
The Wrotham Park case, therefore, still shines, rather as a solitary
beacon, showing that in contract as well as tort damages are not always
narrowly confined to recoupment of financial loss. In a suitable case
damages for breach of contract may be measured by the benefit gained by the
284
wrongdoer from the breach. The defendant must make a reasonable A

payment in respect of the benefit he has gained. In the present case the
Crown seeks to go further. The claim is for all the profits of Blake's book
which the publisher has not yet paid him. This raises the question whether
an account of profits can ever be given as a remedy for breach of contract.
The researches of counsel have been unable to discover any case where the
court has made such an order on a claim for breach of contract. In Tito v
Waddell (No z) [1977] Ch 106, 332, a decision which has proved
controversial, Sir Robert Megarry V-C said that, as a matter of fundamental
principle, the question of damages was "not one of making the defendant
disgorge" his gains, in that case what he had saved by committing the wrong,
but "one of compensating the plaintiff". In Occidental Worldwide
Investment Corporation v Skibs A/S Avanti [1976] 1 Lloyd's Rep 293, 337,
Kerr J summarily rejected a claim for an account of profits when ship owners C
withdrew ships on a rising market.
There is a light sprinkling of cases where courts have made orders having
the same effect as an order for an account of profits, but the courts seem
always to have attached a different label. A person who, in breach of
contract, sells land twice over must surrender his profits on the second sale to
the original buyer. Since courts regularly make orders for the specific
performance of contracts for the sale of land, a seller of land is, to an extent,
regarded as holding the land on trust for the buyer: Lake v Bayliss [1974]
1 WLR 1073. In Reid-Newfoundland Co v Anglo-American Telegraph Co
Ltd [1912] AC 555 a railway company agreed not to transmit any
commercial messages over a particular telegraph wire except for the benefit
and account of the telegraph company. The Privy Council held that the
railway company was liable to account as a trustee for the profits it E
wrongfully made from its use of the wire for commercial purposes. In
British Motor Trade Association v Gilbert [1951] 2 All ER 641 the plaintiff
suffered no financial loss but the award of damages for breach of contract
effectively stripped the wrongdoer of the profit he had made from his
wrongful venture into the black market for new cars.
These cases illustrate that circumstances do arise when the just response
to a breach of contract is that the wrongdoer should not be permitted to
retain any profit from the breach. In these cases the courts have reached the
desired result by straining existing concepts. Professor Peter Birks has
deplored the "failure of jurisprudence when the law is forced into this
kind of abusive instrumentalism"; see "Profits of Breach of Contract" (1993)
109 LQR 518, 520. Some years ago Professor Dawson suggested there is no
inherent reason why the technique of equity courts in land contracts should C
not be more widely employed, not by granting remedies as the by-product of
a phantom "trust" created by the contract, but as an alternative form of
money judgment remedy. That well known ailment of lawyers, a hardening
of the categories, ought not to be an obstacle: see "Restitution or Damages"
(1959) 20 Ohio SLJ 175.
My conclusion is that there seems to be no reason, in principle, why the
court must in all circumstances rule out an account of profits as a remedy for
breach of contract. I prefer to avoid the unhappy expression "restitutionary
damages". Remedies are the law's response to a wrong (or, more precisely,
to a cause of action). When, exceptionally, a just response to a breach of
contract so requires, the court should be able to grant the discretionary
285
A remedy of requiring a defendant to account to the plaintiff for the benefits he

has received from his breach of contract. In the same way as a plaintiff's
interest in performance of a contract may render it just and equitable for the
court to make an order for specific performance or grant an injunction, so
the plaintiff's interest in performance may make it just and equitable that the
defendant should retain no benefit from his breach of contract.
The state of the authorities encourages me to reach this conclusion, rather
than the reverse. The law recognises that damages are not always a sufficient
remedy for breach of contract. This is the foundation of the court's
jurisdiction to grant the remedies of specific performance and injunction.
Even when awarding damages, the law does not adhere slavishly to the
concept of compensation for financially measurable loss. When the
circumstances require, damages are measured by reference to the benefit
C obtained by the wrongdoer. This applies to interference with property
rights. Recently, the like approach has been adopted to breach of contract.
Further, in certain circumstances an account of profits is ordered in
preference to an award of damages. Sometimes the injured party is given the
choice: either compensatory damages or an account of the wrongdoer's
profits. Breach of confidence is an instance of this. If confidential
information is wrongfully divulged in breach of a non-disclosure agreement,
it would be nothing short of sophistry to say that an account of profits may
be ordered in respect of the equitable wrong but not in respect of the breach
of contract which governs the relationship between the parties. With the
established authorities going thus far, I consider it would be only a modest
step for the law to recognise openly that, exceptionally, an account of profits
may be the most appropriate remedy for breach of contract. It is not as
E though this step would contradict some recognised principle applied
consistently throughout the law to the grant or withholding of the remedy of
an account of profits. No such principle is discernible.
The main argument against the availability of an account of profits as a
remedy for breach of contract is that the circumstances where this remedy
may be granted will be uncertain. This will have an unsettling effect on
commercial contracts where certainty is important. I do not think these
fears are well founded. I see no reason why, in practice, the availability of
the remedy of an account of profits need disturb settled expectations in the
commercial or consumer world. An account of profits will be appropriate
only in exceptional circumstances. Normally the remedies of damages,
specific performance and injunction, coupled with the characterisation of
some contractual obligations as fiduciary, will provide an adequate response
C to a breach of contract. It will be only in exceptional cases, where those
remedies are inadequate, that any question of accounting for profits will
arise. No fixed rules can be prescribed. The court will have regard to all the
circumstances, including the subject matter of the contract, the purpose of
the contractual provision which has been breached, the circumstances in
which the breach occurred, the consequences of the breach and the
circumstances in which relief is being sought. A useful general guide,
although not exhaustive, is whether the plaintiff had a legitimate interest in
preventing the defendant's profit-making activity and, hence, in depriving
him of his profit.
It would be difficult, and unwise, to attempt to be more specific. In the
Court of Appeal [1998] Ch 439 Lord Woolf MR suggested there are at least
286
two situations in which justice requires the award of restitutionary damages A

where compensatory damages would be inadequate: see p 458. Lord Woolf
MR was not there addressing the question of when an account of profits, in
the conventional sense, should be available. But I should add that, so far as
an account of profits is concerned, the suggested categorisation would not
assist. The first suggested category was the case of "skimped" performance,
where the defendant fails to provide the full extent of services he has
contracted to provide. He should be liable to pay back the amount of
expenditure he saved by the breach. This is a much discussed problem. But
a part refund of the price agreed for services would not fall within the scope
of an account of profits as ordinarily understood. Nor does an account of
profits seem to be needed in this context. The resolution of the problem of
cases of skimped performance, where the plaintiff does not get what was
agreed, may best be found elsewhere. If a shopkeeper supplies inferior and c
cheaper goods than those ordered and paid for, he has to refund the
difference in price. That would be the outcome of a claim for damages for
breach of contract. That would be so, irrespective of whether the goods in
fact served the intended purpose. There must be scope for a similar
approach, without any straining of principle, in cases where the defendant
provided inferior and cheaper services than those contracted for.
The second suggested category was where the defendant has obtained his
profit by doing the very thing he contracted not to do. This category is
defined too widely to assist. The category is apt to embrace all express
negative obligations. But something more is required than mere breach of
such an obligation before an account of profits will be the appropriate
remedy.
Lord Woolf MR [1998] Ch 439, 457, 458, also suggested three facts £•
which should not be a sufficient ground for departing from the normal basis
on which damages are awarded: the fact that the breach was cynical and
deliberate; the fact that the breach enabled the defendant to enter into a
more profitable contract elsewhere; and the fact that by entering into a new
and more profitable contract the defendant put it out of his power to
perform his contract with the plaintiff. I agree that none of these facts would
F
be, by itself, a good reason for ordering an account of profits.
The present case

The present case is exceptional. The context is employment as a member
of the security and intelligence services. Secret information is the lifeblood
of these services. In the 1950s Blake deliberately committed repeated
breaches of his undertaking not to divulge official information gained as a C
result of his employment. He caused untold and immeasurable damage to
the public interest he had committed himself to serve. In 1990 he published
his autobiography, a further breach of his express undertaking. By this time
the information disclosed was no longer confidential. In the ordinary course
of commercial dealings the disclosure of non-confidential information might
be regarded as venial. In the present case disclosure was also a criminal
offence under the Official Secrets Acts, even though the information was no
longer confidential. Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1989 draws a
distinction in this regard between members of the security and intelligence
services and other Crown servants. Under section 1(3) a person who is or
has been a Crown servant is guilty of an offence if without lawful authority
287
A he makes "a damaging disclosure" of information relating to security or

intelligence. The offence is drawn more widely in the case of a present or
past member of the security and intelligence services. Such a person is guilty
of an offence if without lawful authority he discloses "any information"
relating to security or intelligence which is or has been in his possession by
virtue of his position as a member of those services. This distinction was
approved in Parliament after debate when the legislation was being enacted.
Mr Clayton submitted that section I ( I ) is drawn too widely and infringes
article i o of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights
and Fundamental Freedoms (1953) (Cmd 8969). Section 1(1) criminalises
disclosure of information when no damage results. It focuses on the status of
the individual who makes the disclosure, rather than on the nature of the
information itself. A non-damaging disclosure by a member of the security
C and intelligence services is criminal, but the identical non-damaging
disclosure by a Crown servant is not.
This argument was raised for the first time in this House. Your Lordships
are not equipped with the material necessary to decide the point. In the
event this does not matter, because there is in the present case another
consideration which is sufficient for the purposes of the Attorney General.
When he joined the Secret Intelligence Service Blake expressly agreed in
writing that he would not disclose official information, during or after his
service, in book form or otherwise. He was employed on that basis. That
was the basis on which he acquired official information. The Crown had
and has a legitimate interest in preventing Blake profiting from the
disclosure of official information, whether classified or not, while a member
of the service and thereafter. Neither he, nor any other member of the
E service, should have a financial incentive to break his undertaking. It is of
paramount importance that members of the service should have complete
confidence in all their dealings with each other, and that those recruited as
informers should have the like confidence. Undermining the willingness of
prospective informers to co-operate with the services, or undermining the
morale and trust between members of the services when engaged on secret
and dangerous operations, would jeopardise the effectiveness of the service.
An absolute rule against disclosure, visible to all, makes good sense.
In considering what would be a just response to a breach of Blake's
undertaking the court has to take these considerations into account. The
undertaking, if not a fiduciary obligation, was closely akin to a fiduciary
obligation, where an account of profits is a standard remedy in the event of
breach. Had the information which Blake has now disclosed still been
C confidential, an account of profits would have been ordered, almost as a
matter of course. In the special circumstances of the intelligence services, the
same conclusion should follow even though the information is no longer
confidential. That would be a just response to the breach. I am reinforced in
this view by noting that most of the profits from the book derive indirectly
from the extremely serious and damaging breaches of the same undertaking
committed by Blake in the 1950s. As already mentioned, but for his
notoriety as an infamous spy his autobiography would not have commanded
royalties of the magnitude Jonathan Cape agreed to pay.
As a footnote I observe that a similar conclusion, requiring the contract
breaker to disgorge his profits, was reached in the majority decision of the
United States Supreme Court in Snepp v United States (1980) 444 US 507.
288
A-Cv Blake (HL(E)) [2001] 1 AC
The facts were strikingly similar. A former employee of the Central A

Intelligence Agency, whose conditions of employment included a promise
not to divulge any information relating to the agency without prepublication
clearance, published a book about the agency's activities in Vietnam. None
of the information was classified, but an agent's violation of his non-
disclosure obligation impaired the agency's ability to function properly. The
court considered and rejected various forms of relief. The actual damage
was not quantifiable, nominal damages were a hollow alternative, and
punitive damages after a jury trial would be speculative and unusual. Even if
recovered they would bear no relation to either the government's irreparable
loss or Snepp's unjust gain. The court considered that a remedy which
required Snepp "to disgorge the benefits of his faithlessness", was swift and
sure, tailored to deter those who would place sensitive information at risk
and, since the remedy reached only funds attributable to the breach, it could C
not saddle the former agent with exemplary damages out of all proportion to
his gain. In order to achieve this result the court "imposed" a constructive
trust on Snepp's profits. In this country, affording the plaintiff the remedy of
an account of profits is a different means to the same end.
The form of the order D
The Attorney General's entitlement to an account of Blake's profits does

not, in this case, confer on the Crown any proprietary interest in the debt due
to Blake from Jonathan Cape. The Crown is entitled, on the taking of the
account, to a money judgment which can then be enforced by attachment of
the debt in the usual way. These formal steps may be capable of being short-
circuited. Despite the niceties and formalities once associated with taking an
account, the amount payable under an account of profits need not be any
more elaborately or precisely calculated than damages. But in this case there
is a complication. Blake has brought third party proceedings against
Jonathan Cape, seeking payment of £90,000 (less tax). In the third party
proceedings Jonathan Cape has sought to deduct legal expenses incurred in
resisting a defamation claim and in resisting the Crown's claim.
Accordingly, the appropriate form of order on this appeal is a declaration F
that the Attorney General is entitled to be paid a sum equal to whatever
amount is due and owing to Blake from Jonathan Cape under the publishing
agreement of 4 May 1989. The injunction granted by the Court of Appeal
will remain in force until Jonathan Cape duly makes payment to the
Attorney General. I would dismiss this appeal.
The public law claim

The public law claim, advanced by the Attorney General as guardian of
the public interest, arises only if the Crown as Blake's former employer has
no private law claim in respect of the royalties. Accordingly, having regard
to the conclusion already reached on the private law claim, the public law
claim does not call for decision. However, it is right that I should state
briefly why I cannot agree with the decision of the Court of Appeal on this
point, much as I sympathise with the court's objective. The public law claim
is founded on the premise that the royalties belong to Blake. The order made
by the Court of Appeal was not intended to be confiscatory. It was not
intended to extinguish Blake's title. The Solicitor General stated explicitly
289
[2001 ] 1 AC A-G v Blake (HL(E))
A that the order was intended only to be preservative: a "freezing" order.

Indeed, the order is so drafted. Blake is merely restrained from receiving
payment of the royalties "until further order". This is the classic form of
order that seeks to preserve property pending the happening of some other
event. Typically, the event is a decision by the court on who is entitled to the
property. Lord Woolf MR said that the injunction in the present case would
serve the ordinary purpose of preserving assets pending adjudication.
This form of order prompts the question: in the absence of a private law
claim, what is the event pending which the money held by Jonathan Cape is
being frozen in its hands? What is the anticipated adjudication? If Blake
were to return to this country he could be prosecuted for a breach of
section I ( I ) of the Official Secrets Act 1989. When criminal proceedings
were launched, the court would have statutory jurisdiction to make a
C restraint order to prevent the proceeds of a criminal offence being used or
dissipated. If convicted, the Crown could seek a confiscation order under
Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, as amended by the Proceeds of
Crime Act 1995. But none of this is a realistic possibility. The Solicitor
General openly accepted that this is so. There is no prospect of Blake
returning to this country. Thus, the money is not being preserved pending a
criminal prosecution.
This being the case, one must look elsewhere for the event which will
decide what is to happen to the money thus frozen in Jonathan Cape's hands.
I have to say that one seeks in vain for any satisfactory explanation of what
that event will be. The Crown suggested that at some stage in the future an
application might be made to the court for the money to be released to a
charity, or used in some other way which would not benefit Blake. The
E Court of Appeal envisaged the possibility of some use for the unpaid
royalties which would not be "contrary to the public interest". But these
suggestions serve only to underline that, although not so expressed, the effect
of this order is confiscatory. The order will have the effect of preventing the
money being paid to Blake. It is not envisaged that the money will ever be
paid to him. He is being deprived of the use of the money indefinitely. That
is the intention. Although the order is strictly only interlocutory in character
("until further order"), the basis on which the court has made the order is
that Blake will never receive any of the unpaid royalties. That is confiscation
in substance, if not in form. In my view the court has no power to make such
an order. In respect of the proceeds of crime Parliament has conferred upon
the court power to make confiscation orders and ancillary restraint orders.
In Part VI of the Criminal Justice Act 1988, since amended by the Proceeds
C of Crime Act 1995, Parliament has carefully marked out when these orders
may be made. The common law has no power to remedy any perceived
deficiencies in this statutory code. An attempt to do so would offend the
established general principle, of high constitutional importance, that there is
no common law power to take or confiscate property without
compensation: see Attorney General v De Keyser's Royal Hotel, Ltd [1920]
AC 508, Burmah Oil Co Ltd v Lord Advocate [1965] AC 75 and, in this
context, Malone v Metropolitan Police Comr [1980] QB 49, 61-63, per
Stephenson LJ.
I should add that in his judgment Lord Woolf MR [1998] Ch 439, 463,
referred to several cases where interlocutory injunctions were granted to
chief constables freezing the suspected proceeds of crime in circumstances
290
where there had not yet been a conviction for a criminal offence. In this A
House Mr Clayton mounted a sustained attack on these decisions. For his
part the Solicitor General did not seek to rely on these decisions in support of
the Attorney General's case. As Lord Woolf MR noted, the Attorney
General stands in an altogether different legal and constitutional position.
Since the House has not heard contrary argument, it would not be right to
express any views on Mr Clayton's submissions regarding these cases. g
LORD GOFF OF CHIEVELEY. My Lords, I have had the advantage of

reading in draft the speech prepared by my noble and learned friend,
Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead. I agree with it and for the reasons which he
has given I would dismiss this appeal.
LORD BROWNE-WILKINSON. My Lords, I have had the advantage of c

reading in draft the speech prepared by my noble and learned friend,
Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead. I agree with it and for the reasons which he
gives I would dismiss this appeal but vary the order of the Court of Appeal to
declare that the Attorney General is entitled to be paid a sum equal to
whatever amount is due and owing to Blake from Jonathan Cape under the
publishing agreement of 4 May 1989.
D
LORD STEYN. My Lords, in law classification is important. Asking the
right questions in the right order reduces the risk of wrong decisions. This
truth is illustrated by the case before the House. Blake is a convicted traitor.
From 1944 to 1961 he was a member of the intelligence services. In 1944 he
was required to and did sign a contractual undertaking "not to divulge any
official information gained by me as a result of my employment, either in the r
press or book form". This undertaking still binds Blake. In flagrant breach
of the terms of the undertaking Blake published a book in September 1990
dealing in part with his period in the intelligence services. This appeal
concerns a sum of about £90,000 payable by Jonathan Cape Ltd, the
publishers, to Blake. The Court of Appeal upheld the decision of Sir Richard
Scott V-C, that Blake is not liable to account for his profits as a fiduciary:
F
Attorney General v Blake [1998] Ch 439. Despite the encouragement of the
Court of Appeal Mr John Smith QC, the Attorney General at that time,
declined to pursue a claim for restitutionary damages for breach of contract.
While recording its view that such a claim, if made, might be sound, the
Court of Appeal was powerless to acton that view: at pp 456-458. In a case
crying out for effective relief against Blake, the Court of Appeal devised an
injunction, the objective of which was to prevent the money reaching Blake, Q
Due to an initiative taken by the House, the issue of the availability of a
restitutionary remedy is now before the House. At the hearing of the appeal
counsel for Blake addressed first the public law question whether the Court
of Appeal had the power to grant the injunction before he dealt with the
question whether a restitutionary remedy is available. My Lords, taxonomy
requires that the question whether there is such a private law remedy should
be considered first. This is so because the Court of Appeal in granting the
injunction undoubtedly extended the reach of existing powers of the
Attorney General. And that course could only sensibly be entertained if
there was not a restitutionary law remedy. It is therefore to the private law
position that I first turn.
291
Lord Steyn
A In the Court of Appeal in Surrey County Council v Bredero Homes Ltd

f.I993] x WLR 13611 discussed some of the difficulties inherent in creating a
general remedy for the recovery of restitutionary damages for breach of
contract. On that occasion I remarked that it is not traditional to describe a
claim for restitution following a breach of contract as damages. The
terminology is however less important than the substance: under
consideration are claims for the disgorgement of profits against a contract
breaker. There has been a substantial academic debate on the merits of the
actual decision in the Bredero case. Since this issue has not been directly
debated in the present case I propose to express no view on it. But it is right
to acknowledge that the academic comment has been critical of the decision
in the Bredero case I would, however, respectfully offer a comment on the
valuable academic debate. On the one hand, there is no or virtually no
C support for a general action for disgorgement of profits made by a contract
breaker by reason of his breach. On the other hand, there is significantly
absent from the post-Bredero academic comment a reasoned statement of
the particular circumstances when such a remedy should be available. That
is not surprising because it is a notoriously a difficult subject. But the Court
of Appeal has been bold. It is said that the remedy should be available in two
situations, viz (1) in cases of "skimped" performance (where the "gain"
would take the form of expense saved) and (z) "where the defendant has
obtained his profit by doing the very thing which he contracted not to do".
The second would cover the present case. But it potentially has wide
application. Sir Guenter Treitel QCin The Law of Contract, 10th ed (1999),
pp 868-869, n a s questioned the soundness of the observations of the Court
of Appeal: see also the valuable comment by Janet O'Sullivan, "Reflections
E on the role of restitutionary damages to protect contractual expectations"
(to be published) and Hanoch Dagan, "Restitutionary Damages for Breach
of Contract: An Exercise in Private Law Theory" [zooo] 1 Theoretical
Inquiries in Law 115. I am not at present willing to endorse the broad
observations of the Court of Appeal. Exceptions to the general principle that
there is no remedy for disgorgement of profits against a contract breaker are
best hammered out on the anvil of concrete cases.
In the hearing before the House Mr Ross Cranston, the Solicitor General,
in a thoughtful and careful speech argued for a recognition of an action for
disgorgement of profits against a contract breaker where four conditions are
fulfilled. (1) There has been a breach of a negative stipulation, (2) The
contract breaker has obtained the profit by doing the very thing which he
promised not to do. (3) The innocent party (in this case the Crown as
C represented by the Attorney General) has a special interest over and above
the hope of a benefit to be assessed in monetary terms. (4) Specific
performance or an injunction is an ineffective or virtually ineffective remedy
for the breach. The Solicitor General persuaded me that in the case of Blake
each of these conditions is satisfied. But since I recognise that it would be
wrong to create a remedy simply to cover this case, it is right that I should
explain the specific considerations which lead me to conclude that it is right
on a principled basis to develop the law in a way which covers this case and
other cases sharing materially similar features.
My Lords, it has been held at first instance and in the Court of Appeal that
Blake is not a fiduciary. This is not an issue before the House. But, as my
noble and learned friend, Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, has observed, the
292
A-G v Blake (HL(E)) [2001 ] 1 AC
Lord Steyn
present case is closely analogous to that of fiduciaries: compare Reading v A

Attorney General [1951] AC 507. If the information was still confidential,
Blake would in my view have been liable as a fiduciary. That would be so
despite the fact that he left the intelligence services many years ago. The
distinctive feature of this case is, however, that Blake gave an undertaking
not to divulge any information, confidential or otherwise, obtained by him
during his work in the intelligence services. This obligation still applies to
Blake. He was, therefore in regard to all information obtained by him in the
intelligence services, confidential or not, in a very similar position to a
fiduciary. The reason of the rule applying to fiduciaries applies to him.
Secondly, I bear in mind that the enduring strength of the common law is
that it has been developed on a case-by-case basis by judges for whom the
attainment of practical justice was a major objective of their work. It is still
one of the major moulding forces of judicial decision-making. These C
observations are almost banal: the public would be astonished if it was
thought that judges did not conceive it as their prime duty to do practical
justice whenever possible. A recent example of this process at work is
White v Jones [1995] 2 AC 207 where by a majority the House of Lords held
that a solicitor who caused loss to a third party by negligence in the
preparation of a will is liable in damages. Subordinating conceptual
difficulties to the needs of practical justice a majority, and notably Lord Goff
of Chieveley, at pp 259-260, upheld the claim. For my part practical justice
strongly militates in favour of granting an order for disgorgement of profits
against Blake. The decision of the United States Supreme Court in Snepp v
United States, 444 US 507 is instructive. On very similar facts the Supreme
Court imposed a constructive trust on the intelligence officer's profits. Our
law is also mature enough to provide a remedy in such a case but does so by E
the route of the exceptional recognition of a claim for disgorgement of
profits against the contract breaker. In my view therefore there is a valid
claim vesting in the Attorney General against Blake for disgorgement of his
gain.
In view of these conclusions the judgment of the Court of Appeal on the
granting of the injunction may appear to be less important. But in a
persuasive speech counsel for Blake has persuaded me that the judgment of
the Court of Appeal on this aspect cannot stand. First, in granting the
injunction to prevent Blake from receiving his royalties the Court of Appeal
went significantly beyond the existing law governing the powers of the
Attorney General. Secondly, in this case it was unnecessary to do so because
the Attorney General in truth had a perfectly good private law remedy
which he chose not to invoke. Giving to a member of the executive c
unnecessary powers is never a good idea. One does not know how such
powers may be employed in future. Thirdly, the decision of the Court of
Appeal is, in any event, an order with confiscatory effect. Parliament has
legislated for the circumstances in which the profits of crime may be
confiscated. An indispensable statutory requirement is a conviction for the
relevant offence: see Webb v Chief Constable of Merseyside Police [2000]
QB 427. In this case the only relevant offence could be the handing over by
Blake of the manuscript to the publishers. He has not been convicted of that
offence. Given the limitations upon the power to confiscate carefully laid
down by Parliament it is a very strong thing for a court to create a power to
confiscate directly or indirectly the proceeds of crime. After all, the
293
Lord Steyn
A constitutional function of the courts in creating law does not go beyond

filling spaces left vacant by Parliament. Lastly, it has been a longstanding
principle of the common law that, absent legislative authorisation, a court
may not confiscate the property of a citizen: see Malone v Comr of Police of
the Metropolis [1980] QB 49; Webb v Chief Constable of Merseyside Police
[2000] QB 427, per May LJ, at pp 446-448, per Pill LJ, at p 449. This
principle must also apply to a court granting an injunction designed to have
a confiscatory effect.
My Lords, for these reasons, as well as the detailed and far more
compelling reasons given by Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, I would make the
order which he has proposed.
LORD HOBHOUSE OF WOODBOROUGH. My Lords, when he opened

C this appeal, Mr Clayton, to whose pro bono services on behalf of the
appellant George Blake I, too, would wish to pay tribute, warned your
Lordships against being drawn into making bad law in order to enable an
intuitively just decision to be given against a traitor. It is therefore
particularly important to be clear what are the facts which have given rise to
the Attorney General's claim in the present case. They are not materially in
dispute.
Between 1944 and 1961, Blake was employed by the Crown as a member
of the Secret Intelligence Service. As such he was subject to the provisions of
the Official Secrets Act 1911. In August 1944 he signed the requisite
declaration under the Act. The declaration which he signed included the
added sentence:
"I understand that the above clauses [2 and 3] of the Official Secrets
Act 1911 and 1920 cover also articles published in the press and in book
form and I undertake not to divulge any official information gained by me
as a result of my employment either in the press or in book form."
It is common ground in the present case that these words amounted to a
contractual undertaking by Blake in favour of the Crown and that the
Crown had a legitimate interest in asking for this undertaking in aid of the
criminal provisions quoted earlier in the document. It was not a commercial
document and its purpose was not to protect any commercial interest of the
Crown or any right of the Crown commercially to exploit such information.
Its purpose and justification was to support and reinforce the provisions of
the criminal law to which Blake became subject by reason of his entering the
employment of the Crown and signing the statutory declaration. It is that
C justification which prevented the undertaking from amounting to an
unlawful restraint of trade and would now have to be relied upon to justify
the infringement of his freedom to impart information.
Blake had no regard for his duty of loyalty to his country and the Crown
nor to his obligation to observe the criminal law. Between 1951 and i960,
he disclosed valuable secrets to foreign agents. He was later found out and
in 1961 he was, on his own plea, convicted of five offences under the 1911
Act and sentenced to 42 years' imprisonment. He escaped in 1966 and fled
to Moscow.
In 1989, 28 years after his conviction, Blake entered into an agreement
with Jonathan Cape Ltd, an English company, to publish a book to be
written by him about his life from 1944 onwards. He delivered the
' 294
AC v Blake (HL(E)) [2001] 1 AC
Lord Hobhouse of Woodborough
manuscript by the end of that year and the book was published in September A
1990.
The Government however did not take any action against the publishers
Jonathan Cape even though the Government knew of the existence of the
book before it was published. Neither Blake nor anyone else had sought the
Government's permission for the publication. It is accepted that, by
delivering the manuscript to Jonathan Cape, Blake committed an offence
under the 1911 Act (or its successor, the 1989 Act) and broke the
contractual undertaking which he had given in 1944. It is also accepted that
in 1989 and 1990, had it chosen to do so, the Crown could have applied for
an injunction to restrain the publication of the book and would probably
have been successful. Had the court decided in its discretion not to grant an
injunction at that time, one or more of the remedies alternative to an
injunction could have been considered and, if thought appropriate, adopted. C
The present litigation has only come about because the Crown chose not to
take that course at that time.
The reason why in May 1991 these proceedings were started was because
the Crown had learnt of the size of the advance royalty which Jonathan Cape
had agreed to pay Blake. It was about £150,000. The size of this royalty
was accounted for not by any new facts contained in the book. The contents
of the book were, as summarised in the agreed statement of facts, fairly
unremarkable. Parts did relate to his activities as a secret service officer but
by 1989 none of the information was any longer confidential nor was it
alleged that it would damage the public interest. The size of the royalty was
attributable to his notoriety as an infamous spy. The Crown thought that it
was wrong that he should be allowed to enjoy the substantial sum which
resulted from the publication of the book. Blake had escaped his just E
punishment for his crimes. There was no prospect of ever bringing him back
into the jurisdiction and make him serve out his prison sentence. Now that
he had an asset within the jurisdiction, that at least should be withheld from
him; the asset had a connection with the crimes which he had committed.
The remarkable history of the proceedings thereafter has been already
described by my noble and learned friend, Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead. The
claim to the royalties was originally made on recognised proprietary and
fiduciary principles. If applicable they would have given the Crown the
private law remedy they sought, an order for the taking of an account and
the payment over of the sums found due. But this claim could not be
sustained on the facts. Too much time had elapsed since i960. There was
no longer anything which was confidential or which would damage the
public interest; he no longer had any fiduciary relationship to the Crown. G
Sir Richard Scott V-C dismissed the action. The Crown appealed. Its appeal
failed but before it was dismissed a new line was adopted with the
encouragement of the court and leave to amend was given.
The public law claim was made. This relied upon the role of the Attorney
General as an officer of the Crown responsible for assisting in upholding the
criminal law. In this capacity it is open to him to apply for an injunction. He
sought, and after a further hearing the court granted him, an interim
injunction to restrain the payment of the remaining royalty money (about
£90,000) to Blake. However, perhaps conscious that this order might be
open to criticism, the court in its judgment tentatively raised a further
possibility—restitutionary damages.
295
A Blake has now appealed to your Lordships' House against the grant of the
injunction. Like all of your Lordships, I agree that the grant of the
injunction was wrong and should be set aside. But the Crown has, with your
Lordships' encouragement and leave, cross-appealed to make the private
law claim to restitutionary damages which it had previously declined to
make. Your Lordships have concluded that this claim should be allowed.
I cannot join your Lordships in that conclusion. I have two primary
difficulties. The first is the facts of the present case. The speech of my noble
and learned friend explores what is the "just response" to the defendant's
conduct. The "just response" visualised in the present case is, however it is
formulated, that Blake should be punished and deprived of any fruits of
conduct connected with his former criminal and reprehensible conduct. The
Crown have made no secret of this. It is not a commercial claim in support
C of any commercial interest. It is a claim relating to past criminal conduct.
The way it was put by the Court of Appeal [1998] Ch 439, 464 was:
"The ordinary member of the public would be shocked if the position
was that the courts were powerless to prevent [Blake] profiting from his
criminal conduct."
The answer given by my noble and learned friend does not reflect the
essentially punitive nature of the claim and seeks to apply principles of law
which are only appropriate where commercial or proprietary interests are
involved. Blake has made a financial gain but he has not done so at the
expense of the Crown or making use of any property of or commercial
interest of the Crown either in law or equity.
My second difficulty is that the reasoning of my noble and learned friend
E depends upon the conclusion that there is some gap in the existing state of
the law which requires to be filled by a new remedy. He accepts that the term
"restitutionary damages" is unsatisfactory but, with respect, does not fully
examine why this is so, drawing the necessary conclusions.
The cross-appeal has to be determined on the basis that the only civil
cause of action which the Crown has against Blake is a bare legal cause of
action in contract for breach of contract in that he failed in 1989 to observe
the negative undertaking which he gave in 1944. As already observed, it is
recognised by Blake that the Crown had at the least a good arguable case for
the grant of an injunction against him at that time. In other words it was a
breach of contract—breach of a negative undertaking—liable to be
restrained by injunction, i e, specifically enforced.
But the Crown did not apply for an injunction at the time it would have
C done some good and quite probably stopped the publication of the book.
This is the source of the problems for the Crown in achieving its purpose in
bringing these proceedings. It cannot say that it intends to prosecute Blake
because it does not expect that he will ever return to this country;
consequently it admits that it cannot say that it will ever be in a position to
make use of the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 19 8 8 and the Proceeds
of Crime Act 1995. It does not say that the payment of the £90,000 by
Jonathan Cape to Blake would amount to the commission of any criminal
offence by either Jonathan Cape or Blake. It accepts that it has no direct
right of recourse against Jonathan Cape; it is confined to claiming some
public law or private law remedy against Blake. It now accepts that its
original claim that it has equitable or fiduciary or proprietary rights against
296
Blake cannot be sustained. It cannot claim compensatory damages for A

breach of contract because it has suffered no loss as a result of the
publication.
What then was left? First there was the public law claim to an interim
injunction as awarded by the Court of Appeal. Second there now is the claim
not made as such in the Court of Appeal but now fully argued in your
Lordships' House as a cross-appeal by the Crown for restitutionary
damages.
The public law claim

I agree that the decision of the Court of Appeal cannot be sustained.
I agree with the reasoning of my noble and learned friends save in so far as it
seeks to pray in aid their conclusion on the cross-appeal. The injunction was
granted in aid of preserving a power later to confiscate the relevant sum of
money. The Attorney General has the locus standi to make such an
application. He did not seek to rely on Chief Constable of Kent v V [1983]
QB 34 and there has been no need to consider that case. The reason why the
grant of the injunction cannot be sustained is that there is no common law
power to confiscate as such the earnings of even convicted criminals
(Malone v Metropolitan Police Comr [1980] QB 49) and, if there was any D
such power, the field is now fully occupied by statutory provisions which
proceed on the basis that there is no such general power and make express
and defined provision for a qualified grant of such a power (cf Attorney
General v De Keyser's Royal Hotel Ltd [192.0] AC 508). The Crown
accepted that it could not realistically say that it would ever be in a position
to invoke the statutory powers. The injunction was an interim one and
unless it is in support of some sustainable further remedy it was wrong in
principle and must be set aside.
The private law claim: restitutionary damages

It is with some hesitation that I enter upon this field at all in view of your
Lordships' so far unanimous opinion save so as to record my dissent. The
F
subject is a profound one which has attracted much attention among the
academic writers for some time. Neither the subject nor the opinions of my
noble and learned friends, Lord Nicholls and Lord Steyn, could be done
justice in many fewer pages than their opinions will occupy. However I do
not believe that it is helpful (or courteous to Mr Clayton) that I should add
nothing at all. Exceptional though this case is, courts hereafter will have to
consider its relevance to the decisions of other cases which will surely come c
before them. I will however confine myself to what I regard as the minimum
of explanatory comment (with the inevitable consequence of some
simplification).
The concepts of restitution and compensation are not the same though
they will on occasions fulfil the same need. Restitution is analogous to
property: it concerns wealth or advantage which ought to be returned or
transferred by the defendant to the plaintiff. It is a form of specific
implement. Its clearest form is an order for the return or transfer of property
which belongs in law or in equity to the plaintiff. Property includes an
interest in property. Then there are rights recognised in equity such as those
which arise from a fiduciary relationship. These rights give rise to
297
A restitutionary remedies including the remedy of account which, depending

on the circumstances, could also derive from a common law relationship
such as agency. Then, again, there are the rights now grouped under the
heading of the law of restitution or unjust enrichment. These are still truly
restitutionary concepts leading to restitutionary remedies. Typically they
require the payment of money by the person unjustly enriched to the person
at whose expense that enrichment has taken place. In so far as the
appropriate remedy is the payment of money or the delivery up of a chattel
or goods is concerned the common law could provide it; insofar as it
required some other remedy or the recognition of an equitable right, the
chancery jurisdiction had to be invoked.
The essential of such rights and their enforcement was the procuring by
the courts of the performance by the defendant of his obligations. The
C plaintiff recovers what he is actually entitled to not some monetary
substitute for it. If what the plaintiff is entitled to is wealth expressed in
monetary terms, the order will be for the payment of money but this does not
alter the character of the remedy or of the right being recognised. He gets the
money because it was his property or he was in some other way entitled to it.
It is still the enforced performance of an obligation. The same is the case
where an injunction is granted or a decree of specific performance or the
ordering of an account.
It is this class of rights which the Crown is unable to invoke as a result of
the judgment of Sir Richard Scott V-C upheld by the Court of Appeal. There
is no obligation of Blake left to perform or which now can be enforced. That
time passed with the failure to apply for an injunction in 1989 or 1990. The
Crown has no right to an injunction to stop the payment of the royalty to
E Blake and procure its payment to the Crown instead. The Crown has no
right to the royalty and does not now assert one.
The law, including equity, provides extensive and effective remedies for
protecting and enforcing property rights. It is no criticism of the law that
they are not available now to the Crown. The Crown does not have the
substantive rights to support such remedies.
Two further points need to be briefly mentioned. There are cases which
are treated as so closely analogous to proprietary rights that they are covered
by remedies which are appropriate to such rights. The contractual right in
Reid-Newfoundland Co v Anglo-American Telegraph Co Ltd [ 1912] AC 555
was held to have created a trust. In Reading v Attorney General [1951]
AC 507, restitutionary remedies were awarded against an army sergeant
who used his army uniform and army vehicle to enable him to assist
C smugglers. The money he was paid by the smugglers was held to be money
for which he must account to his employer in the same way as if he had
received a bribe: see per Asquith LJ in the Court of Appeal. These cases
would have assisted the Crown had they succeeded on the facts before
Sir Richard Scott V-C. The other point is that where a court declines to
grant an injunction it may award damages in lieu. This does not alter the
principles which are applicable nor does it provide the Crown with a remedy
in the present case; but it is relevant to the understanding of the authorities.
The Crown has to allege a breach of contract. This is not a claim to the
performance of any obligation save in the sense used by Lord Diplock that
contractual obligations are correctly understood as being the obligation to
perform or pay damages for failing to do so—the primary and secondary
r AC 2 . 0 0 1 — r i
298
A-Gv Blake (HL(E)) [2001] 1 AC
obligation: Photo Production Ltd v Securicor Transport Ltd [1980] AC 827. A

The claim is for damages in order to put the plaintiff in the same position as
if the contract had been performed. It is a substitute for performance. That
is why it is necessarily compensatory. The error is to describe compensation
as relating to a loss as if there has to be some identified physical or monetary
loss to the plaintiff. In the vast majority of cases this error does not matter
because the plaintiff's claim can be so described without distortion. But in a
minority of cases the error does matter and cases of the breach of negative
promises typically illustrate this category.
But, before coming to them, I would like to refer to Ruxley Electronics
and Construction Ltd v Forsyth [1:996] AC 344. This was the case of the
swimming pool. The defendant had contracted to build for the plaintiff a
swimming pool of a specified depth. The pool was not of that depth. The
defendant had broken his contract. The plaintiff was entitled to damages. C
The value of his property was affected either not at all or only marginally.
The swimming pool was serviceable. But the plaintiff was entitled to a
deeper pool. The prima facie measure of damages would have been the cost
of increasing the depth of the pool to the stipulated depth—a considerable
sum. But this sum was so disproportionate that the courts refused to award
it. It would be unreasonable for the plaintiff to incur that expense. His
damages must be assessed at a lower figure. The speech of Lord Mustill, at
PP 359 - 36i, is illuminating. The loss is a reasonable valuation of what the
plaintiff ought to have had but did not get. It is not just the amount (if any)
by which his property has a lower market value than that it would have had
if the contract had been performed. In the present case, by 1989, Blake's
undertaking had no remaining value to the Crown.
The question of negative covenants typically arise in relation to land and f
covenants not to build. A complication is that they usually involve a
proprietary right of the plaintiff which he is prima facie entitled to enforce as
such. Where the plaintiff has failed to obtain or failed to apply for an
injunction, he has to be content with a remedy in damages. What has
happened in such cases is that there has either actually or in effect been a
compulsory purchase of the plaintiff's right of refusal. (The award of
damages in tort for the conversion or detinue of goods is also an example of
compulsory purchase as is demonstrated by the common law rule that the
payment of the damages vests the title in the goods in the defendant.) What
the plaintiff has lost is the sum which he could have exacted from the
defendant as the price of his consent to the development. This is an example
of compensatory damages. They are damages for breach. They do not
involve any concept of restitution and so to describe them is an error. The C
error comes about because of the assumption that the only loss which the
plaintiff can have suffered is a reduction in the value of the dominant
tenement. It is for this reason that I agree with my noble and learned friend,
Lord Nicholls, that the decision in Wrotham Park Estate Co Ltd v Parkside
Homes Ltd [1974] 1 WLR 798 is to be preferred to that in Surrey County
Council v Bredero Homes Ltd [1993] 1 WLR 1361: see also Jaggard v
Sawyer [1995] 1 WLR 269. I would however add that the order proposed by
your Lordships does not reflect this principle; it goes further. It does not
award to the Crown damages for breach of contract assessed by reference to
what would be the reasonable price to pay for permission to publish. It
awards the Crown damages which equal the whole amount owed by
299
A Jonathan Cape to Blake. That is a remedy based on proprietary principles

when the necessary proprietary rights are absent.
The principle of compensation is both intellectually sound as the remedy
for breach and provides the just answer. The examples discussed in my
noble and learned friend's speech do not on the correct analysis disclose the
supposed need to extend the boundaries of remedies for breach of contract.
The reason why the Crown should not recover damages in the present case
derives from the exceptional public law nature of the undertaking which
Blake gave. If the relationship had been a commercial one it is probable that
by 1989 the undertaking would be regarded as spent or no longer enforcible,
but if still enforcible the breach of it would have supported compensatory
damages on the "compulsory purchase" basis.
The examples given by my noble and learned friend are examples of
C compensatory damages. Lord Halsbury's dining-room chair is no different
unless the error which I have identified is made. He would have lost the use
of the chair and it, like other such amenity-value assets, can be assessed by
reference to the sum which has been expended on its acquisition and/or
maintenance or interest upon its capital value during the period of
deprivation. The supposed problem arises from asking the wrong question
not from receiving the wrong answer.
I must also sound a further note of warning that if some more extensive
principle of awarding non-compensatory damages for breach of contract is
to be introduced into our commercial law the consequences will be very far
reaching and disruptive. I do not believe that such is the intention of your
Lordships but if others are tempted to try to extend the decision of the
present exceptional case to commercial situations so as to introduce
E restitutionary rights beyond those presently recognised by the law of
restitution, such a step will require very careful consideration before it is
acceded to.
My Lords, Mr Clayton was right to say that the exceptional facts of this
case have been critical to its decision. The policy which is being enforced is
that which requires Blake to be punished by depriving him of any benefit
from anything connected with his past deplorable criminal conduct. Your
Lordships consider that this policy can be given effect to without a departure
from principle. I must venture to disagree. I would allow the appeal and
dismiss the cross-appeal.
Appeal dismissed with costs.

Declaration that Attorney General
C entitled to be paid by defendant sum
equal to whatever amount was due
and owing to defendant from
publisher under publishing
agreement of May 1989.
Solicitors: Birnberg Peirce & Partners; Treasury Solicitor.

H
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268

A-G v Blake (HL(E)) [2001 ] 1 AC

Attorney General v Blake (Jonathan Cape Ltd Third Party)

Confidential Information — Breach of confidence — Public interest — Former

The following cases are referred to the opinions of their Lordships:

Chief Constable of KentvV[i9$)] QB 34; [1982] 3 WLR462; [1982] 3 All ER36, CA A

The following additional cases were cited in argument:

A IncalvTurkey (1998) 4BHRC476

A It will lead to uncertainty in the assessment of damages in commercial and

A The court made an order in the following terms:

present case: by Janet O'Sullivan, "Reflections on the Role of Restitutionary A

Interference with rights of property

"what is the consequence in law and in equity? . . . a court of equity in A

Breach of trust and fiduciary duty r

I should refer briefly to breach of trust and breach of fiduciary duty.

A Damages under Lord Cairns's Act

A built on land burdened with a restrictive covenant. Instead,

wrongdoer from the breach. The defendant must make a reasonable A

A remedy of requiring a defendant to account to the plaintiff for the benefits he

two situations in which justice requires the award of restitutionary damages A

The present case

A he makes "a damaging disclosure" of information relating to security or

The facts were strikingly similar. A former employee of the Central A

The form of the order D

The Attorney General's entitlement to an account of Blake's profits does

The public law claim

A that the order was intended only to be preservative: a "freezing" order.

LORD GOFF OF CHIEVELEY. My Lords, I have had the advantage of

LORD BROWNE-WILKINSON. My Lords, I have had the advantage of c

A In the Court of Appeal in Surrey County Council v Bredero Homes Ltd

present case is closely analogous to that of fiduciaries: compare Reading v A

A constitutional function of the courts in creating law does not go beyond

LORD HOBHOUSE OF WOODBOROUGH. My Lords, when he opened

Blake cannot be sustained. It cannot claim compensatory damages for A

The public law claim

The private law claim: restitutionary damages

A restitutionary remedies including the remedy of account which, depending

obligation: Photo Production Ltd v Securicor Transport Ltd [1980] AC 827. A

A Jonathan Cape to Blake. That is a remedy based on proprietary principles

Appeal dismissed with costs.

Solicitors: Birnberg Peirce & Partners; Treasury Solicitor.

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