A liquidator's equitable lien for remuneration, costs and expenses does not arise in priority to a secured creditor's charge where the litigation that produced the fund was brought to impugn the secured creditor's security and was conducted adversely to the secured creditor's interests, substantially for the benefit of a particular unsecured creditor. The Re Universal Distributing principle requires some willingness on the part of the secured creditor to participate in the winding up; merely resisting a claim designed to impugn the security, or claiming the settlement sum under a pre-existing charge, does not constitute 'coming in' to the winding up. The question left open is the precise boundaries of the broader equitable test for unconscientiousness in other factual scenarios.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 12 later cases that cite this judgment.
2 of the 12 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.