Business Crime & Financial Services Autumn Newsletter
Welcome to this Autumn edition of 2 Hare Court’s Business Crime Group newsletter; we hope that it finds you refreshed after a summer break.
In this edition, Oliver Glasgow QC and Ben Rich discuss the first challenge to an Unexplained Wealth Order which was brought by Mrs Hajiyeva, who infamously spent £16 million in Harrods over a 10 year period.
Brian O’Neill QC and Grace Forbes consider the impact of the High Court decision in Raychaudhuri v GMC [2018] EWCA Civ 2027 on the dishonesty test and whether the test is now closer to Ghosh than previously thought in the immediate aftermath of last year’s Supreme Court decision in Ivey v Genting Casinos.
Leon Kazakos explains the draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill which is directed at improving transparency of the beneficial ownership of businesses.
Finally, Vivienne Tanchel reviews the Administrative Court’s decision in The Queen on behalf of KBR Inc v The Serious Fraud Office [2018] EWHC 2368 (Admin) which increases the power available to the Serious Fraud Office in compelling the production of documents held outside of the United Kingdom.
We hope you find this an interesting and informative document and should you require any further information about our expertise in this field please do not hesitate to contact our Director of Clerking, Julian Campbell.
Best,
Vivienne Tanchel
Business Crime Group
Challenge To First Unexplained Wealth Order Fails In High Court |
| Oliver Glasgow QC & Ben Rich |
| National Crime Agency v Mrs A [2018] EWHC 2534 (Admin) 3rd October 2018
Supperstone J Even given the prices it charges, running up a £16 million bill in Harrods over ten years takes some doing. But when it’s done by a woman who does not claim to have independent wealth of her own, and who was married to a banker who earned at most around £60,000 a year, it is hardly surprising that the National Crime Agency (NCA) took an interest. Zamira Hajiyeva was known as Mrs A in the Judgment but she subsequently lost her battle to remain anonymous. It is now known that her husband, Jahangir, was Chairman of the International Bank of Azerbaijan which was referred to as “the Non-EEA Country”. For simplicity the original terms of the judgment are used in this article. Back in February of this year Mrs A, was the subject of the first ever Unexplained Wealth Order (UWO)… Read More |
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Raychaudhuri v GMC: Ivey rules?Brian O’Neill QC & Grace Forbes The recent case of Raychaudhuri v GMC, [2018] EWCA Civ 2027 will be of interest to practitioners in a range of fields not least those working in the area of professional discipline for whom the decision of the regulator in appealing the finding of the tribunal at first instance was met with the following rebuke from Bean LJ: “Although I agree that the High Court had jurisdiction to hear this appeal by the GMC, I wish to express my regret that it was brought. It should require a very strong case for a court to overturn a finding of the MPT (or any comparable tribunal) that a doctor has not acted dishonestly……The discretion given by section 40A(3) to appeal against any decision which the GMC consider not sufficient for the protection of the public is a wide one, but in my view it is a discretion to be exercised with restraint where it involves a challenge to a finding of fact in the practitioner’s favour.” Our focus in this article will be upon the Court’s consideration of the test for dishonesty and the relationship between the tests set out in R v Ghosh [1982] QB 1053 (‘Ghosh’) and Ivey v Genting Casinos (UK) Ltd [2017] UKSC 67; [2018] AC 391 (‘Ivey’). The outcome is a blueprint for a highly nuanced, context specific approach to dishonesty in legal proceedings… Read More |
Transparency and Overseas Ownership of UK Property – The Draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill |
| Leon Kazakos |
| The drive to enhance and improve transparency in the beneficial ownership of corporate entities generally began in earnest in March 2016 with the publication of a discussion paper to explore whether the Government should legislate to create a beneficial ownership register of overseas companies that own UK property or participate in government procurement. The result of that discussion was the publication of the Draft Registration of Overseas Entities Bill presented to Parliament in July of this year. The consultation period on this Bill ended on 17 September 2018. The Bill focuses only on ownership of UK property, there is no mention of government procurement. The Bill, if it enters into law, will require any overseas entity that wishes to own UK land to identify its beneficial owner(s) and managing officers and to register them on a public register at Companies House. The machinery of the Bill adopts that of the ‘People with Significant Control’ regime set out in Part 21A Companies Act 2006, That Act imposes obligations on a company which include
(i) Taking reasonable steps to identify and notify people with significant control of the company and registrable relevant legal entities (ii) Recording information about those people in the PSC register at Companies House and keeping Companies House provided with updated information. The Bill defines an ‘overseas entity’ as a legal entity (a body corporate, partnership or other entity that (in each case) is a legal person) that is governed by the law of a country or territory outside the UK… Read More |
Extraterritorial Reach of Section 2 Notices |
Vivienne Tanchel |
| Whilst the attention of practitioners in white-collar crime has for obvious reasons been predominately focused on the significant impact of the decision in ENRC, the important decision of the High Court in The Queen (On the application of KBR Inc) v The Director of the Serious Fraud Office[2018] EWHC 2368 (Admin) may have escaped attention. However it too has significant impact on the scope and powers of the Serious Fraud Office.
KBR Inc is a worldwide organisation with some 34,000 employees, which is incorporated in Houston Texas. It operates through various subsidiaries across the globe including in the United Kingdom. The Serious Fraud Office is conducting an investigation into its activities on the basis of suspected bribery and corruption… Read More |
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