The case represents an equitable exception to the need for a complete transfer of property in law.

She asked Mr Pennington, who represented the company's auditors, to prepare a share transfer form.

Mr Pennington put it on the auditors’ files but never gave it on to the company for the registration of shares in Harold's name to be completed.

The other people who stood to inherit, (including Philip Waine) argued that unlike Re Rose, Ada had not done all she could have, because she had not handed the completed transfer form to Harold or the company.

Arden LJ held that it would have been unconscionable for Ada to change her mind and go back on the transfer.

In these circumstances, at any rate in the absence of a respondent’s notice, I accept Mr Weatherill’s submission that it is not open to us to hold that the form came into the possession of the company.

I am bound to say that if the matter were free of authority, I would hold that the beneficial interest in the shares passed to Harold.

In addition to the facts just set out, a feature of the case which has particularly struck me stems from the role and wording of the stock transfer form.

Under Harold’s name there appears the further statement: “I/We request that such entries be made in the register as are necessary to give effect to the transfer.” To my mind none of the remainder of the form is relevant for present purposes.

Thus in Standing v Bowring (1885) 31 Ch D 282 the plaintiff executed an instrument transferring shares into the joint names of herself and her godson.

The plaintiff did not deliver the instrument to her godson, although, as Lindley LJ put it, she caused the shares to be so transferred in the books of the Bank of England.

Cotton LJ expressed the position thus (at p 288): “Now, I take the rule of law to be that where there is a transfer of property to a person, even although it carries with it some obligations which may be onerous, it vests in him at once before he even knows of the transfer, subject to his right when informed of it to say, if he pleases, “I will not take it””.The court there held both that the plaintiff was not entitled to have the legal title to the shares re-transferred and also that there were no equitable grounds on which the plaintiff was entitled to relief.

It is, I think, plain that in this latter respect the court was impressed by the fact that the plaintiff deliberately transferred the shares into her joint names after being advised that she would not be able to rescind the transaction and, as Lindley LJ put it (at p 288), clearly intending her godson to keep the shares for his own benefit after her death.

Although the court did not put in these terms, it plainly thought that it would have been unconscionable to allow the plaintiff to resile from the transaction.

Nor can I see any reason why delivery to the company of either the share certificates or the transfer form should be necessary to perfect an equitable assignment.

Yet, in that case, there can I think be no doubt that on the facts set out by Arden LJ, there would have been a valid equitable assignment of the shares.

Arden LJ has referred to the purported transfer of part of the real property in that case by unregistered memorandum.

Another part of the property was transferred by deed, which stated that it was signed and delivered by Ribeiro, who was the donor.

In giving the judgment of the Board Viscount Haldane said (at p 337): “Their Lordships entertain no doubt that the conveyance of the unregistered property was a deed which was duly delivered.

As was said by Blackburn J in Xenos v Wickham (1867) 2 HL 296, 312 no particular technical form of words or acts is necessary to render an instrument the deed of the party who has executed it.

That a deed may be validly executed, even though it remains in the custody of the person who made it or his agent, appears from what was laid down in Doe v Knight 5 B&C 671.

Such a conclusion was reached in In Re Ways Trusts (1864) 2 DJ&S 365, where a person entitled to an equitable reversionary interest in some stock made a voluntary assignment of it by deed to trustees.

As I read Heartley v Nicholson (1874) 19 LR Eq 233, it was not alleged that there was a complete equitable assignment of the shares.

In that case Mr Pehrsson intended to give his shares in a company to Miss von Greyerz.

It was held that it was impossible to construe the gift as having taken by a change in the beneficial interest before the transfer was registered.

Finally, the second possible exception is another decision of the Privy Council, namely Choithram International SA v Pagarani [2001] 1 WLR 1, to which Arden LJ has referred.

It suggested that donee's acting to his detriment in reliance on the promised gift is essential, making the situation a form of proprietary estoppel.