2 | Back to reality for misrepresentation claims

November 2025 saw a welcome return to reality for financial misselling claims arising from misrepresentation. In Credit Suisse Life (Bermuda) Ltd v Bidzina Invanishili[1], the Privy Council confirmed that it is not necessary for a claimant to prove that they were consciously aware of the misrepresentation when entering into a transaction to succeed in such claims.

The decision recognises that fraudsters will often behave in such a way as to create and exploit an assumption of honesty by the injured party. This is particularly relevant to misselling claims involving a concealed fraud by ostensibly reputable financial institutions, where the client or counterparty will generally take it for granted that the institution is not behaving fraudulently without giving the question any real conscious thought.

The decision puts an end to an emerging line of first instance decisions seeking to introduce the requirement for claimants to prove ‘contemporaneous conscious thought’ about the representation – which in practice presented an insurmountable barrier to otherwise valid misrepresentation claims.

The removal of this barrier reopens the viability of misselling claims, enabling victims of deceit to hold counterparties to account.