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Found: the court case used to compare Bojo to a ‘dodgy estate agent’ by John Major

The Negotiator has tracked down the 2008/9 Supreme Court case in New Zealand used by the former PM to accuse Johnson of breaching his 'fiduciary duties'.

Nigel Lewis

boris johnson john major

Former Prime Minister John Major has fewer friends in the property industry following comments that surfaced yesterday comparing Boris Johnson to a ‘dodgy estate agent’.

The comments were included in submissions made to the Supreme Court earlier this month by Major’s lawyer Lord Garnier, but that only came into the public domain yesterday.

The 76-year-old’s lawyer spoke for 20 minutes during the two-hour hearing at the Supreme Court yesterday in front of 11 justices, arguing that the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue parliament was unlawful and politically motivated.

And it also emerged yesterday that Major’s submitted document compared Johnson to an estate agent featured in a 2009 legal case in New Zealand.

The case, heard in New Zealand’s highest court, involved a vendor who was persuaded to drop their asking price of $3 million by their estate agent to accommodate a buyer, only to later find that the purchaser was a professional investor who had soon afterwards sold the property on for a  substantial profit.

New Zealand

The New Zealand court found that the estate agent had breached its ‘fiduciary duties’ when incorrectly representing the buyer’s intentions to the vendor, and found in favour of the seller.

The agent, Premium Real Estate, was ordered to pay damages of $659,813 to the vendor.

In the document that came to light yesterday, Lord Garnier compared the New Zeland case to Johnson’s alleged misrepresentation of his intentions to the Queen when requesting the suspension or prorogation of parliament earlier this month.

Read the full court media release about the 2009 case.

September 20, 2019

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