Foreign investments may look juicy – but are you properly protected?

Foreign investments can offer better returns than those available at home – but the downside is that the English courts may not be able to help you if it all goes wrong. In one case UK-based investors, who lost $400,000 when bonds turned out to be worthless, were told that they would have to fight their battle in Singapore.

The two investors claimed that they had been negligently sold the bonds and that the level of security they offered had been misrepresented to them. However, they had arranged the transaction through a private bank which was based in Singapore and which had no trading presence in Britain.

They purported to serve proceedings on the bank’s mother company, which did have an office in London but was not domiciled in this country. The High Court found that valid service had not been achieved. The investors’ claim against the company was also struck out after the Court noted that it had not acquired the bank until after the events in question.

The facts of the case related more closely to Singapore than to England and there was no suggestion that the investors could not obtain justice in the island state. In those circumstances, the Court found that Singapore was clearly and distinctly the more appropriate forum for the trial of the investors’ claims.