Mr Cooley was an architect employed as managing director of Industrial Development Consultants Ltd., part of IDC Group Ltd.

The Eastern Gas Board had a lucrative project pending, to design a depot in Letchworth.

Mr. Cooley then told the board of IDC Group that he was unwell and requested he be allowed to resign from his job on early notice.

He rejected the argument that because he made it clear in his discussions with the Gas Board that he was speaking in a private capacity, Mr. Cooley was under no fiduciary duty.

said, at p. 124: “I do not think it is necessary, but it appears to me very important, that we should concur in laying down again and again the general principle that in this court no agent in the course of his agency, in the matter of his agency, can be allowed to make any profit without the knowledge and consent of his principal; that that rule is an inflexible rule, and must be applied inexorably by this court, which is not entitled, in my judgment, to receive evidence, or suggestion, or argument as to whether the principal did or did not suffer any injury in fact by reason of the dealing of the agent; for the safety of mankind requires that no agent shall be able to put his principal to the danger of such an inquiry as that.”Throughout the last century, and also in the present century, courts of the highest authority have always strictly applied this rule.