In addition to his double agency, publication was a further breach of the confidentiality clause, and disclosure of non-confidential information was a criminal offence under the Official Secrets Act 1911.

The House of Lords ruled that normal contractual remedies of damages, specific performance or injunction were not enough, and that the publishers should pay any money owing to Blake to the Crown.

Highlighting the fact that "trustees and fiduciaries are financially disinterested in carrying out their duties... to this end they must not make any unauthorised profit," and that trustees and fiduciaries are accountable for "unauthorised profits", regardless of whether the beneficiaries have made a loss, he compared the current case to Reading v. Attorney General [1951] AC 507, a case that involved a breach concerning another civil servant.

Invoking the Chancery Amendment Act 1858, he stated that the court had a jurisdiction to "award damages when declining to grant equitable relief" in equity rather than in common law.

Whilst "the common law courts' jurisdiction to award damages was confined to loss of injury flowing from a cause of action which had accrued before the writ was issued", equity allowed for "damages for loss of a bargaining opportunity or... the price payable for the compulsory acquisition of a right."

Outlining the law on remedies for breach, Nicholls states that damages are generally compensatory as per Robinson v Harman.

A useful general guide, although not exhaustive, is whether the plaintiff had a legitimate interest in preventing the defendant's profit-making activity and, hence, in depriving him of his profit.

In the 1950s Blake deliberately committed repeated breaches of his undertaking not to divulge official information gained as a result of his employment.

Section 1 of the Official Secrets Act 1989 draws a distinction in this regard between members of the security and intelligence services and other Crown servants.

Under section 1(3) a person who is or has been a Crown servant is guilty of an offence if without lawful authority he makes 'a damaging disclosure' of information relating to security or intelligence.

Such a person is guilty of an offence if without lawful authority he discloses 'any information' relating to security or intelligence which is or has been in his possession by virtue of his position as a member of those services.

In this country, affording the plaintiff the remedy of an account of profits is a different means to the same end.Lord Goff and Lord Browne-Wilkinson agreed.

But, as my noble and learned friend Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead has observed, the present case is closely analogous to that of fiduciaries: compare Reading v. Attorney-General [1951] AC 507.

The distinctive feature of this case is, however, that Blake gave an undertaking not to divulge any information, confidential or otherwise, obtained by him during his work in the intelligence services.

Secondly, I bear in mind that the enduring strength of the common law is that it has been developed on a case-by-case basis by judges for whom the attainment of practical justice was a major objective of their work.

A recent example of this process at work is White v. Jones [1995] 2 AC 207 where by a majority the House of Lords held that a solicitor who caused loss to a third party by negligence in the preparation of a will is liable in damages.

Subordinating conceptual difficulties to the needs of practical justice a majority, and notably Lord Goff of Chieveley, at pp.

For my part practical justice strongly militates in favour of granting an order for disgorgement of profits against Blake.

Our law is also mature enough to provide a remedy in such a case but does so by the route of the exceptional recognition of a claim for disgorgement of profits against the contract breaker.

"The answer given by my noble and learned friend does not reflect the essentially punitive nature of the claim and seeks to apply principles of law which are only appropriate where commercial or proprietary interests are involved.

My second difficulty is that the reasoning of my noble and learned friend depends upon the conclusion that there is some gap in the existing state of the law which requires to be filled by a new remedy.

If what the plaintiff is entitled to is wealth expressed in monetary terms, the order will be for the payment of money but this does not alter the character of the remedy or of the right being recognised.

The law, including equity, provides extensive and effective remedies for protecting and enforcing property rights.