Eiger Funding (PCC) Ltd v Ridge and Partners LLP
[2026] EWHC 609 (TCC)
Eiger sought damages for professional negligence against Ridge, arising out of their work as Independent Fund Monitoring Surveyors (“IMS”). One of the issues related to an alleged conflict of interest. It was said that Ridge should never have acted as both the quantity surveyor for the developer and as an IMS. This dual role was in clear conflict with the RICS Professional Guidance.
The RICS professional standard note on Conflicts of Interest, 1st edition (2017), provides in Part 3 as to: “Party Conflicts: a) if a single regulated firm accepts 2 or more professional assignments in connection with the same transaction, or related transactions and the respective clients’ interest conflict, then there will probably be a Conflict of Interest or significant risk of a Conflict of Interest for the regulated firm (a Party Conflict)”. Where there is such a conflict, the firm should not act, unless the firm obtains Informed Consent in writing.
The phrase “Informed Consent” is defined and provides for a strict procedure whereby there is “consent given willingly and knowingly by a party who may be affected by a Conflict of Interest”.
The issue here was that Ridge had acted for the developer in preparing the 2015 Cost Appraisals, which had formed the basis of a fixed price lump sum of £10.2 million in the JCT Contract. The judge commented that when advising NWC in 2018, Ridge were in a clear conflict of interest: they were “marking their own homework”.
Ridge had not obtained informed consent; neither as defined in the RICS professional standard note nor by any other understanding of the term. The funders were aware that Ridge had acted for the developer on another project, but this was a different project and rather than attempting to obtain informed consent, Ridge had said there was no conflict.
One question for the court was whether this conflict was causative of any loss. In the view of Judge Williamson KC: “the conflict was here potentially causative of loss”. Whilst a conflicted party may give competent advice, the existence of the conflict may be of little importance. Here, however, the starting point for the advice was the fixed price lump sum figure of £10.2 million, which was said to be “robust”. Ridge did not mention to NWC that the figure of £10.2 million was their figure and one arrived at in 2015, after which construction costs had risen by about 20%. The judge said: “They should have pointed this out to NWC. And they should have gone on to say that, in these circumstances, this was another reason why there was a significant risk that substantial costs would be incurred over and above those put forward by [the developer]”.
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