Burmah Oil
British oil company whose 1964 Lords case win prompted the War Damage Act 1965.
Burmah Oil's 1964 House of Lords victory, wiped out by retrospective legislation a year later, became a reference case in September 2026 as peers weighed donation caps on the Representation of the People Bill that would leave past gifts untouched.
Last refreshed: 7 October 2026
Timeline for Burmah Oil
Mentioned in: Peers table four caps on party donors
UK Local Elections 2026Background
Burmah Oil was a British oil company with installations in Burma. In 1942 British forces destroyed them to keep them out of the hands of the advancing Japanese Army.
The company sued the Crown for compensation and won in The House of Lords by three votes to two on 21 April 1964, in Burmah Oil Co Ltd v Lord Advocate. Parliament answered with the War Damage Act 1965, which removed, with retrospective effect, the Crown's liability for property lawfully destroyed in war.
The episode is the standard British example of legislation passed to cancel compensation a court had found was due. It is raised whenever Parliament considers laws that reach back to past acts or payments.
The 1965 reversal shadows donor caps
The company's case matters to the 2026 funding debate because of what Parliament did next. Burmah Oil won compensation from the Crown in April 1964, and the War Damage Act 1965 then cancelled that award with retrospective effect.
Peers tabled four donation caps in September 2026, once the Representation of the People Bill had cleared its Lords Second Reading on the 14th, and as drafted none would apply to money already given. Retrospective reach is the issue that brings the 1964 case back: Parliament can legislate backwards, and Burmah Oil is the standing example of it doing so to take away a sum the courts had ruled was owed.