Roderick Bagshaw on the Tort of Unlawful Means Conspiracy
September 30, 2026
The Tort Law Research Group’s fall term public lecture was held on September 24, 2026. The speaker was Professor Roderick Bagshaw of the University of Oxford. His talk was entitled “Unlawful Means Conspiracy: Time to Say Goodbye?”. His core contention was that it is not time to abolish the tort because it continues to provide a useful avenue of recovery for injured plaintiffs in certain circumstances. As he put it, “this tort will not disappear due to any lack of use”.
The tort of conspiracy has been considered an anomalous cause of action. Two or more people acting together for the same purpose can be liable in conspiracy even in cases in which their conduct would otherwise be legal, or at least not a tort, in the absence of the concerted action. Their agreement can make tortious what would not be tortious, and the law has struggled to explain why. In his lecture, Professor Bagshaw canvassed some of the leading explanations, including one advanced by Western Law’s Professor Jason Neyers that focuses on the idea of abuse of rights.
According to Professor Bagshaw, the tort retains its utility when used by courts “to hold each of a group of defendants jointly responsible for the loss caused by their scheme”. In the lecture he engaged with the debate about whether each conspiring defendant should be seen as primarily liable for the plaintiff’s loss or instead seen as an accessory to wrongdoing committed by the defendants who acted to cause the loss. He revisited the idea of group action—ganging up—as having the potential to be harmful through the amplification of power.
The Supreme Court of the United Kingdom will hear an appeal in February 2027 in a conspiracy case with notorious facts. The plaintiff is former Formula One Ferrari driver Felipe Massa, suing in conspiracy in respect of the investigation into a 2008 crash at the Singapore Grand Prix. The crash and its aftermath became known as “crashgate” and Massa alleges that the crash ended up costing him the Drivers’ Championship, won by a single point by Lewis Hamilton. This appeal will potentially affect the scope of the tort of conspiracy.
The TLRG public lecture series is one of the most prominent in the common law world specifically about tort law, as attested to by the list of former speakers over the past two decades, a veritable “who’s who” of tort law scholars from around the world. This fall’s lecture was attended by both faculty and students, who posed challenging and thoughtful questions.
Professor Bagshaw is a Tutor and a Fellow in Law at Magdalen College. He teaches and writes in the areas of tort law, administrative law and evidence. He is the co-author, with Nick McBride (a prior speaker in this same public lecture series), of a highly regarded English textbook on tort law and is responsible for writing chapters in Phipson on Evidence and Clerk and Lindsell on Torts. He is also an associate tenant at Cornerstone Barristers of Gray’s Inn Square, London.
The lecture series is sponsored by the London law firm of MD Lawyers. It represents victims who have suffered serious personal injuries due to medical malpractice, which is important and challenging tort litigation. The firm’s principal lawyer, Joni Dobson, is a Western Law graduate who currently serves on the board of directors of the Advocates’ Society.
Watch the full video here: https://youtu.be/UKuTH1qk_m8
