Attorney General v Blake (2001) 1 AC 268
Blake joined the secret service in 1944. He agreed not to divulge any official information obtained as a result of his employment either in the press or in book form. The undertaking was expressed to continue after his employment ceased – as it did when he was convicted and imprisoned for espionage. The Government brought an action for breach of contract against George Blake for the profits he was receiving from the British publisher of his memoirs written in exile in Moscow.
The problem for the Government was that it could not show that it had suffered loss through the publication of Blake’s memoirs. The House of Lords ordered an account of profits as a remedy for breach of contract. Lord Nicholls stated that account of profits might be awarded 'exceptionally' where 'a just response to a breach of contract so requires'.
One important factor will be whether the plaintiff had 'a legitimate interest in preventing the defendant’s profit-making activity and hence in depriving him of his profit' with the remedy of account of profits available where someone misuses a position of ascendancy or influence or trust and obtains something that ought to have gone to a person in a position of protection, vulnerability or beneficial entitlement.
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