Corporate & Financial Crime

WWS LLP v RL Southwark CC [2021]

Instructed to prosecute RL with an offence of Fraud by Abuse of Position. The accused had systematically obtained in excess of £4m from the company by a variety of methods, including inflated personal expenditure and diversion of funds to his own bank account. The brand is well known in the shoe industry and supplies a number of the major department stores. The owner of the business is a trust which originates from the USA. As a result of the above and the high profile of the defendant, the case is likely to be widely reported. The defence recently applied to stay the case as an abuse of process and ran a dismissal argument in relation to one of the counts on the Indictment. HHJ Bartle QC ruled against all the defence applications leading to pleas being offered by the Defendant. He was sentenced to 4 years imprisonment. A costs order was made in favour of the Prosecution.

• https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9861335/Former-face-designer-shoe-firm-38-footwear-worn-Meghan-Markle-facing-jail.html
• https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2014/11/14/owner-of-fraud-linked-feed-venture-could-end-up-re-owning-assets-of-liquidated-firm/

Operation Volt [2020 to present]

Eight-handed conspiracy to produce counterfeit £20 notes of more than £12m in value, described by the main Bank of England witness as one of the largest such cases he had ever seen. The client was also later charged with perverting the course of justice and conspiracy to cause GBH due to material seized from an EncroChat device relating to an Organised Crime Group, once Encro breach had been achieved.

• https://www.kentonline.co.uk/kent/news/money-laundering-ring-discovered-by-police-206063/

Operation Casper [2020 to present]

Substantial MTiC (Carousel VAT fraud) said to have been conducted over 2 years (2012 to 2014). More than 30 companies listed in Indictment Schedule of involved trading entities. Voluminous material already well in excess of 10,000 pages.

Operation Midas Cardiff Crown Court [2017-2019]

The Defendant was charged with 5 others including members of his family with a £7.5m fraud. The fraud took the form of grant payments from the Welsh Assembly and the European Union. This was a fraud perpetrated over many years generating a vast amount of documentation. The case was a “Bespoke” Contract under the VHCC scheme, and the contract was based on 150,000 pages of evidence. The client was the lead defendant and said by the Crown to be the architect of the fraud. The case attracted significant publicity and was politically sensitive for the Welsh government, with suggestions of negligent allocation of budget funds.

• https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-48227597
• https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/answers-demanded-over-4m-public-1818863
• https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-west-wales-14389968