THE PALACE OF JUSTICE CIVIL APPEAL NO. P-02-2074-2011 ...

engine in accordance with the specifications, it did not intend to seek
redress from MBS or MBUK. In so far as Bumi was concerned, it had
relied on MSE and MSE alone. It held MSE responsible. Even in Junior
Books, Lord Roskill accepted (at 547) that the concept of proximity must
always involve, at least in most cases, some degree of reliance. In such
circumstances, we do not see how Bumi could have averred that it was
relying on the promise of MBS and MBUK to deliver a satisfactory engine.
It was not. To infer such a duty would run counter to the specific
arrangement which Bumi had chosen to make with MSE. While MBS and
MBUK certainly owed a duty of care to MSE by virtue of the sub-contract,
we do not think a similar duty was owed to Bumi. There was no such
assumption of duty by MBS or MBUK vis-à-vis Bumi. Bumi could have, by
altering the contractual structure, made MBS or MBUK assume that
responsibility. But it did not. Instead, Bumi elected to distance itself from
all the sub-contractors, including MBS and MBUK.
In this regard, we think the following passage, though obiter, of Lord Goff
of Chieveley in Henderson v Merrett Syndicates Ltd [1994] 3 WLR 761
at 790, is germane:
I wish however to add that I strongly suspect that the situation which arises in the
present case is most unusual; and that in many cases in which a contractual
chain comparable to that in the present case is constructed it may well prove to
be inconsistent with an assumption of responsibility which has the effect of, so to
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