In this article, Michael Axe looks at a recent High Court decision in which an IT supplier was held responsible for the fraudulent misrepresentations made by its sales team while bidding for a high value contract.

The case of BSkyB Limited v Electronic Data Systems Limited has been one of the largest commercial disputes of the last decade, but the issues it raised are ones likely to affect businesses of all shapes and sizes. Whilst the sums involved in this case are impressive, the background to the dispute is a situation which will be familiar to many.

This judgment has brought into sharp focus how easily a company can be held responsible for the ill-conceived decisions of one “bad apple”, and this article looks at the practical lessons that can be learnt from this case.