Question juridique clé
Whether the respondent breached the portfolio management mandate by investing in the E.________ Ltd. product contrary to the agreed investment strategy and instructions.
Solution extraite
The investment did not violate the mandate as understood by the court; the relevant instruction was construed as excluding stock-market and currency risks, not merely the formal purchase of securities labelled as shares.
Motifs extraits
The court applied mandate law and contractual interpretation principles. It held that the disputed product was a collective investment structure whose underlying assets were notes and whose currency risk was hedged; therefore the purchase was not contrary to the clients' instruction not to buy stocks or foreign currencies.