Mr Homan, a PriceWaterhouseCoopers partner, administered the insolvent companies of Robert Maxwell.

Bishopsgate Investment Management Ltd. was the trustee of pension moneys belonging to the employees of Maxwell Communications Corporation plc.

In breach of trust, Maxwell paid the pension money into the overdrawn accounts of MCC.

Unless there was evidence that payments were made to the overdrawn account with the intention of benefiting the trust fund from which monies had been withdrawn, which in Maxwell’s case appeared highly unlikely, no equitable charge could be imputed against the credit balance.

BIM could therefore not recover any of the misappropriated pension fund monies from MCC in priority to the unsecured creditors.