Safeway Stores Ltd and others v Twigger and others [2010] EWCA Civ 1472, [2010] All ER (D) 245 (Dec)
If an undertaking infringed provisions of the Competition Act 1998 relating to anti-competitive activity and was duly penalised by the OFT, that undertaking could not recover the amount of such penalties from its directors or employees who were themselves responsible for the infringement. The liability was personal to the undertaking. No one was liable for the penalty imposed by the Act except the relevant undertaking.
If there was a liability it could not be imposed on any person other than the undertaking and the undertaking was personally liable for the infringement. If a penalty was imposed, it would only be because the undertaking itself had intentionally or negligently committed the infringement.
In those circumstances, it was the undertaking which was personally at fault (there could be no one else who was) and, once the maxim was engaged, the undertaking could not say that it was not personally at fault in order to defeat the application of the maxim. The whole hypothesis of the undertaking’s liability was that it was
