A Study on the Bank's Breach of Contract to keep the Business Secrecy in Transferable Credit Transactions - with a Special Emphasis on the English Case Law, Jackson v. Royal Bank of Scotland -

양도가능신용장거래에서 은행의 영업상 비밀 유지의무위반에 관한 연구 - Jackson v. Royal Bank of Scotland 사건에 대한 영국법원의 판결을 중심으로

This article aims at analysing the reality of banks' liability resulting from the breach of contract on its part to keep the business secrecy with the supplier in the transferable credit, focusing on a English decision, Jackson v. Royal Bank of Scotland [2005] UKHL 3. In this case, the applicant, 'Econ', had purchased various varieties of pre-packed dog chews in bulk through 'Sam'(lst beneficiary) from 'PPLtd'(2nd beneficiary) in Thailand, using a transferable letter of credit issued by 'RBank'. 'Sam' charged a tremendous amount of mark-up on each transaction and it had not been disclosed to 'Econ', although the identity of 'PPLtd' was revealed to 'Econ' by various documents. However, 'RBank' made an unfortunate error to send an completion statement and other documents including 'PPLtd.'s invoice to 'Econ' instead of to 'Sam'. The effect of the Bank's error was to reveal to 'Econ' the substantial profit that 'Sam' was making on these transactions. CEO of 'Econ' was furious and, as a result, decided to cut 'Sam' out of its importing system and terminated their relationship. 'Sam' sued 'RBank' for damages to recover the loss of profits which could have been possibly made, if the information on the mark-up would not have been exposed to 'Econ'. The House of Lord held that 'RBank' was in breach of its duty of confidence, so 'Sam' was entitled to recover damages on a decreasing scale over 4 years, since there was no specific undertaking from the letter of credit.