Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation

Commission
Anisminic Ltd v Foreign Compensation Commission [1969] 2
AC 147 is a UK constitutional law case from the House of Lords
Anisminic Ltd v Foreign
in English administrative law. It established the "collateral fact Compensation
doctrine", that any error of law made by a public body will make Commission
its decision a nullity and that a statutory exclusion clause (known
as an ouster clause) does not deprive the courts from their
jurisdiction in judicial review unless it expressly states this.

Contents
Court House of Lords
Facts Decided 17 December 1968
Judgment Citation(s) [1969] 2 AC 147,
Significance [1969] 2 WLR 163
External links Transcript(s) BAILII Transcript (htt
p://www.bailii.org/uk/
cases/UKHL/1968/6.
Facts html)
Court membership
As a result of the Suez Crisis some mining properties of the
appellant Anisminic (renamed from Sinai Mining Co.) located in Judge(s) Lord Reid, Lord
the Sinai peninsula were seized by the Egyptian government sitting Morris of Borth-y-
before November 1956. Anisminic then sold the mining properties Gest, Lord Pearce,
to The Economic Development Organisation (TEDO), owned by Lord Wilberforce,
the Egyptian government, in 1957. Lord Pearson

In 1959 and 1962, Orders in Council were made under the Foreign Keywords
Compensation Act 1950 to distribute compensation paid by the Judicial review, Ouster clause, Error
Egyptian government to the UK government with respect to of law
British properties it had nationalised. Anisminic claimed that they
were eligible for compensation under the Orders, and the claim was determined by a tribunal (the
respondents in this case) set up under the Foreign Compensation Act.

The tribunal decided that Anisminic were not eligible for compensation, because their "successors in title"
(TEDO) did not have British nationality, as required by the Orders.

Anisminic sought judicial review of the tribunal's decision. Anisminic were successful in the High Court
(Browne J), but this decision was reversed by the Court of Appeal; Anisminic then appealed to the House
of Lords.
There were two important issues. The first was whether the tribunal had made an error of law when
construing the term "successor in title". The second issue, which had important implications for the law on
judicial review, was whether a court's jurisdiction to review a tribunal's decision could be excluded by an
"ouster clause" in the relevant legislation even if the tribunal had made an error of law. Such a clause was
section 4(4) of the Foreign Compensation Act: “The determination by the commission of any application
made to them under this Act shall not be called into question in any court of law."

Judgment
By a 3-2 majority, the House of Lords decided that section 4(4) of the Foreign Compensation Act did not
preclude a court from reviewing the tribunal's decision. It said that a court is always able to inquire whether
there has actually been a "decision", meaning a legally valid decision. If there is no legally valid decision
(that is, the purported decision is legally a nullity) there is no "decision" to which an ouster clause can
apply. The Lords found the purported decision to be invalid (a nullity), because the tribunal had
misconstrued the term "successor in title". Since the tribunal's determination that Anisminic did not qualify
for compensation was null, Anisminic were entitled to a share of the compensation paid by the Egyptian
government.

Significance
The decision illustrates the courts' reluctance to give effect to any legislative provision that attempts to
exclude their jurisdiction in judicial review. Even when such an exclusion is relatively clearly worded, the
courts will hold that it does not preclude them from scrutinising the decision on an error of law and
quashing it when such an error occurs.

It also establishes that any error of law by a public body will result in its decision being ultra vires.

External links
Anisminic v Foreign Compensation Commission – full text of the decision (http://www.bailii.o
rg/uk/cases/UKHL/1968/6.html)

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