''Twyne's case'' (1601) 76 ER 809; 3 Co. Rep. 80b is a

UK insolvency law United Kingdom insolvency law regulates companies in the United Kingdom which are unable to repay their debts. While Bankruptcy in the United Kingdom, UK bankruptcy law concerns the rules for natural persons, the term ''insolvency'' is generall ...

case, concerning a

fraudulent conveyance A fraudulent conveyance or fraudulent transfer is the transfer of property to another party to prevent, hinder, or delay the collection of a debt owed by or incumbent on the party making the transfer, sometimes by rendering the transferring part ...

. Representative of earlier English law, it was considered that any transfer of property from a

debtor A debtor or debitor is a legal entity (legal person) that owes a debt to another entity. The entity may be an individual, a firm, a government, a company or other legal person. The counterparty is called a creditor. When the counterpart of this ...

to a

creditor A creditor or lender is a party (e.g., person, organization, company, or government) that has a claim on the services of a second party. It is a person or institution to whom money is owed. The first party, in general, has provided some propert ...

, after which the debtor remained in possession of that property, was a fraudulent act intended to defraud creditors. At the time, the law only recognised the

mortgage A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law (legal system), civil law jurisdictions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners t ...

and the pledge. A charge on property in possession of another was not allowed.

Facts

Pierce, a farmer, owed Twyne of

Hampshire Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants.) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Berkshire to the north, Surrey and West Sussex to the east, the Isle of Wight across the Solent to the south, ...

£400. He also owed another creditor £200, and this creditor brought an action. While the writ was pending, Pierce sold his

sheep Sheep (: sheep) or domestic sheep (''Ovis aries'') are a domesticated, ruminant mammal typically kept as livestock. Although the term ''sheep'' can apply to other species in the genus '' Ovis'', in everyday usage it almost always refers to d ...

to Twyne to pay off his debt. However, Pierce remained in possession of the sheep, marking and shearing them. At the other creditor's instance, the Sheriff of Southampton came to collect the sheep. Twyne and his acquaintances resisted this. Twyne argued that he was a bona fide purchaser for valuable, and not inadequate, consideration within the Fraudulent Conveyances Act 1584 (27 Eliz. 1. c. 4).

Judgment

The Star Chamber (Sir Thomas Egerton, Chief Justice Popham and Anderson) held this was an attempt to defraud his creditors under the

Fraudulent Conveyances Act 1571 The Fraudulent Conveyances Act 1571 ( 13 Eliz. 1. c. 5), also known as the Statute of 13 Elizabeth, was an act of the Parliament of England, which laid the foundations for fraudulent transactions to be unwound when a person had gone insolvent ...

. The following reasons were given. It was further held that the gift may have been on good consideration, but could not be bona fide.

Footnotes

Explanatory notes

References

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