Bankers thinking the UK municipality swaps debacle of the 1980s is behind them can think again. A recent House of Lords case has managed to extract more mileage from it, and create legal history. The case, Kleinwort Benson v Lincoln County Council, has reversed a 200-year old legal principle that “ignorance of the law is no excuse”, quoted by lawyers as “ignorantia non excusat lex”. Under this principle, a party is unable to claim in his defence that he misunderstood or overlooked a statute or case.
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