Fairclough v Swan Brewery Co Ltd,[1] is a land law case, in which the Privy Council held that restrictions on the right to redeem a mortgage are void.

The equity of redemption means that borrowers are able to sell or obtain new mortgage finance promptly and without impinging on other dependent transactions.

[4] The Swan Brewery commenced proceedings in the Supreme Court of Western Australia seeking to enforce the exclusive dealing clause and Fairclough made a cross claim seeking equitable relief against the mortgage and damages for the Swan Brewery failing to supply enough beer.

The advice of the Privy Council was delivered by Lord Macnaghten,[7] which held that there was a broad rule that the right of redemption could not be hampered or crippled, noting that "The rule in comparatively recent times was unsettled by certain decisions in the Court of Chancery in England which seem to have misled the learned Judges in the Full Court.

But it is now firmly established by the House of Lords that the old rule still prevails and that equity will not permit any device or contrivance being part of the mortgage transaction or contemporaneous with it to prevent or impede redemption."

[1] The House of Lords later held in Kreglinger v New Patagonia Meat and Cold Storage Co Ltd,[8] that collateral advantages in a mortgage could be and could only be upheld if they are "not either (1) unfair and unconscionable, or (2) in the nature of the penalty clogging the equity of redemption or (3) inconsistent with or repugnant to the contractual and equitable right to redeem," There has been some judicial debate in Australia as to the status of the decision in Fairclough v Swan Brewery Co Ltd. Fairclough v Swan Brewery Co Ltd has been cited by the High Court, though not in a way essential to the decision.