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You are here: BAILII >> Databases >> Jersey Unreported Judgments >> Prospective Applicant v Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police [2019] JRC 032 (28 February 2019) URL: http://www.bailii.org/je/cases/UR/2019/2019_032.html Cite as: [2019] JRC 32, [2019] JRC 032 |
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Judicial Review - application for the privacy/anonymity orders to continue
Before : |
J. A. Clyde-Smith., Commissioner sitting alone. |
Between |
"Prospective Applicant" |
Applicant |
And |
Chief Officer of the States of Jersey Police |
Respondent |
Advocate W. A. F. Redgrave for the Applicant.
Advocate H. Sharp for the Chief Officer.
judgment
the COMMISSIONER:
1. The applicant applies for the continuation of privacy/anonymity orders made by the Court on 19th November, 2018, when leave was granted to the applicant for a Judicial Review of a decision of the respondent to refuse consent to the normal operation of accounts in which the applicant has an interest.
2. The privacy/anonymity orders made by the Court were in these terms:-
"1. There shall be a hearing in private on a date to be fixed, to give directions in respect of measures relating to anonymity and privacy (if not agreed in advance by the parties and approved by the Court).
2. The proceedings through to the conclusion of the anonymity and privacy hearing shall be held in private and any judgments therein shall not reveal the identity of the applicant."
3. I have concluded that anonymity should continue and my description of the background facts will therefore be curtailed in order to protect the anonymity of the applicant.
4. The applicant is the Chief Executive Officer of a company that acts as adviser to a hedge fund which invests, inter alia, in equity positions and financing. Both the applicant and the company are named as defendants in a number of class actions commenced in the United States in 2017, in which they are alleged to be involved, with others, in a series of manipulative share issuance - sales transactions in publicly quoted companies, described as "a fraudulent course of conduct". The allegations are being investigated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the relevant regulatory authority in the United States, but both the applicant and the company deny that they have acted improperly in any way.
5. The applicant is a discretionary beneficiary of a Jersey proper law trust, which through a wholly owned BVI company has invested in, and received dividends from the hedge fund. In or around July 2018, the Jersey administrators of the BVI company filed a suspicious transaction report, following which a decision to withhold consent to the normal operation of its accounts was taken by the States of Jersey Police, and which decision is the subject of the Judicial Review.
6. It seems clear from the affidavit of DS Fitzgerald, a supervisor attached to the Financial Intelligence Unit within the States of Jersey Police, dated 16th January, 2019, that the suspicion of the administrators related to the allegations in these class actions.
7. The applicant has filed two affidavits in which he states, inter alia, that:-
(i) The class action proceedings in the U.S. are civil proceedings, in which the allegations are disputed.
(ii) The SEC is a regulatory body, and not a criminal authority. No regulatory proceedings have been commenced.
(iii) The applicant is not aware of any criminal investigation in any jurisdiction into these matters and the applicant has not been charged with any criminal offences.
None of this is disputed by Advocate Sharp acting for the respondent.
8. The applicant goes on to say that lawsuits of this kind are commonplace in the U.S. This explanation was provided by the applicant's U.S. lawyer:-
"Specifically regarding the civil class action lawsuits which we discussed at our meeting, the types of securities litigation class action lawsuits at issue here are often used in the U.S. as play by sophisticated plaintiffs' attorneys to prey on vulnerable defendants and have been called 'excessive and sometimes abusive' by none other than former SEC Commissioner, Paul Atkins. Atkins further states that 'courts require plaintiffs to show only that the company's stock declined and that there was an alleged inaccuracy or omission in the company's public disclosures', without any actual reliance on such misstatements. This framework has led to 'an explosion of costly nuisance litigation and attempts to shake down corporations'. Importantly, unlike in other jurisdictions in the world, a plaintiff in the U.S. does not face costs or any other penalty if a lawsuit such as this is dismissed. A creative and ruthless plaintiff's attorney is free to file as many such lawsuits as he can, routinely seeking early settlement and a payout typically of 30-40% in contingency fees.
These types of lawsuits rarely go to trial and often do not survive initial scrutiny for failure to state a claim. The allegations in the lawsuits here focus primarily on supposed misstatements or material omissions by the [public] companies. This is important because the plaintiffs gloss over the fact that [the applicant] and [the applicant's] entities do not share the same legal exposure as the public company defendants here, who are obligated to file periodic and current SEC reports. [The applicant] and [the applicant's] entities, as mere third-party financing sources for the companies, are not obligated to make the same disclosures. So, knowing the legal claims against 'the applicant' are tenuous, the plaintiffs suggestively sweep in [the applicant] and [the applicant's] entities wholesale into the alleged misconduct of the public companies without a legal or factual basis. Yet, the plaintiffs allege no control or influence by [the applicant] of the [public] company's operations or governance. And the plaintiffs make no factual allegations regarding any communications or activities underlying any promotional activity or illegal trading."
9. Published U.S. literature produced by Advocate Sharp (Cornerstone Research) supported the applicant's assertion that lawsuits of this kind are commonplace in the U.S. and showed that of the class actions against companies in the S & P 500 from 1997 - 2017, 50% were settled and 43% were dismissed. Overall less than 1% of filings ever reached a trial verdict.
10. However Advocate Sharp pointed out that through the class actions brought against the applicant, these allegations were in the public domain and, indeed, the first result of a Google search of the applicant's name referred to the U.S. "fraud lawsuits" in which the applicant was involved. The applicant's case is that because such lawsuits are so common in the U.S., the reputational damage of this was limited. However, to be publicly identified in proceedings in Jersey as being suspected of criminal conduct would have a severe impact upon the applicant, the employees of the applicant's companies and the investors in the hedge fund. The applicant put it this way in the first affidavit:-
"23 Such publicity would have grossly unfair and unjustified effects. My ability to conduct business, through [the BVI company] or otherwise, would be severely prejudiced, as suggestions of criminality are likely to be picked up by the media, public companies with which I engage in business, other institutional colleagues and competitors, and financial institutions. It is one thing to be the subject of speculative lawsuits or regulatory investigations, but to be alleged to be a suspect in relation to a crime is considerably more serious. Any publication of a report linking me to suspected criminal behaviour would be potentially searchable by all internet search engines and thus have the capacity to cause me reputational damage for years, if not decades ahead.
24. Not only would my day-to-day business operations be crippled, but my business reputation would be stained immeasurably, and future opportunities would be impaired, by any association with supposed criminal activity. Any such publicity could provoke additional baseless lawsuits and more intense scrutiny by regulators. These lawsuits and investigations, no matter how groundless, use significant investor funds and create hardship for my employees and other business relationships. On a personal note, my family and my community would also be harmed significantly by publicity of unfounded links to criminal conduct."
11. The applicant went into further details as to the consequences in the second affidavit, as follows:-
"4. If I were to be publicly associated with criminal conduct the detriment to my business would be severe and immediate. It is inevitable that all prime brokerage accounts connected to me (including ...) would be shut down. Prime brokerage is a generic term for the speciality services that financial institutions provide to hedge funds. These include, amongst other things, securities lending, leveraged trade executions and global custody services.
5. The loss of prime brokerage accounts would be catastrophic to the operation of my business. As a result of losing these services, my business would not be able to operate, and it would be a near certainty that the funds would have to either close or suspend trading, assets would have to be liquidated urgently (almost inevitably at a loss), investors would surely suffer losses and/or seek to withdraw their funds, and all employees would have to be made redundant or would depart pre-emptively to join rival institutions.
6. My name has been publicised in relation to civil class-action law suits, however a suggestion of criminal behaviour is a fundamentally different proposition. As I explained in my First Affidavit (para 5), securities litigation is extremely common in the United States with nearly one-quarter of the S&P 500 companies currently being sued by class-action plaintiffs. Accordingly the market reaction to involvement in civil proceedings, while detrimental, does not carry the same consequences as a public suspicion of criminality.
7. In my view, it would be fundamentally unjust if, in order to invoke the Royal Court's jurisdiction to review the decision of the SOJP, I were to be forced to risk catastrophic consequences to my business and losses from which I could never recover regardless of how events might ultimately conclude."
12. In these circumstances, the applicant says that if anonymity cannot be guaranteed, then the applicant will be unable to pursue the application and justice will be denied.
13. The principle that legal proceedings should be heard in public and freely reported is deeply entrenched. The leading case in this jurisdiction is Jersey Evening Post v Al Thani [2002] JLR 542, which encapsulates the position:-
14. In Warren v AG [2013] JCA 145, the Jersey Court of Appeal confirmed that these fundamental rules of open justice can be modified if necessary to achieve substantive justice:-
15. The position in England is governed by CPR 39.2 which provides that as a general rule hearings are to be in public, but may be in private where inter alia publicity would defeat the object of the hearing, to protect the interest of a child, patient, party or witness or where it is considered to be necessary in the interests of justice. It might be said that this broadly reflects the position under Jersey law and so it is instructive to have regard to English case law.
16. The Supreme Court considered the principle of open justice in the case of In R (on the application of C) v Secretary of State of Justice [2016] UKSC 2, which concerned a prisoner who had been convicted of murder, whose tariff of 15 years had expired and who was detained as a patient in hospital for treatment for mental illness. He brought Judicial Review proceedings over a refusal of the Secretary of State to consent to him having unescorted community leave and the issue was whether there should be an anonymity order. Lady Hale, giving the judgment of the Court, said this at paragraph 1:-
17. She addressed the rationale for the second rule at paragraphs 18 and 19:-
18. She concluded at paragraph 20:-
19. She concluded on the facts of that case, at paragraph 36:-
20. In Natasha Armes v Nottinghamshire County Council [2016] EWHC 2864 (QB), a case concerned with an order for anonymity of witnesses against whom findings of physical and sexual abuse had been made by the court, Males J gave this helpful summary, having considered the authorities:-
21. A number of other English cases were cited to me by counsel, but as they acknowledged they all turned on their particular facts. However, there were examples of cases concerned with the ambit of police consent powers, where the names of the parties had been anonymised, namely N v Royal Bank of Scotland [2017] WLR 3938, K Ltd v National Westminster Bank Plc [2007] 1 WLR 311 and Governor of Bank of Scotland v A Limited [2001] 1 WLR 751. The judgments in those cases make no reference to the issue of anonymisation, though in Governor of Bank of Scotland v A Limited, Lord Woolf CJ said this at paragraph 4:-
22. This application has to be considered against the potential injustice of the Jersey statutory regime where, unlike the English statutory regime, no time limits are set down in which police have to respond, and if that does not happen, the service provider is free to proceed. The potential injustice of this was recognised by the Court in Gichuru v Walbrook Trustees (Jersey) Limited and others [2008] JRC 068, where Sir Michael Birt, then Deputy Bailiff, said this at paragraph 12:-
23. Further comments were made by Sir Michael Birt in Chief Office of the States of Jersey Police v Minwalla [2007] JLR 409. In both cases, there were recommendations for reform of the Jersey legislation. Having said that, Advocate Sharp has drawn to my attention the decision of the Court of Appeal of Guernsey in The Chief Officer, Customs & Excise, Immigration & Nationality Service v Garnet Investments Limited Judgment 19/2011, where both Gichuru and Minwalla were considered, and where it was held that in Guernsey (and arguably therefore in Jersey), there were good reasons not to replicate the English legislation in this respect (see paragraphs 43 - 57).
24. In summary and in the context of this case, the general principle is that proceedings should be held in public and be freely reported, but that principle can be displaced if it is necessary to do so in the interests of justice. In considering the interests of justice, the Court will take into account the Article 8 Convention rights of the person concerned, as well as the countervailing right to freedom of expression under Article 10 of the Convention, but the consequences to that person of being identified must be sufficiently severe to justify the displacement of the general principle of open and freely reported justice.
25. Advocate Sharp argued that the applicant's Article 8 rights were not engaged, because of the material already available publicly in relation to the class action proceedings in the U.S. to which the applicant is a defendant. Even if they are engaged, the second question, he said, was whether the interference with that Article 8 right is justified by reference to Article 10 and the principle of open justice, and in his view, it was. Here is an applicant, he said, who has declined to put forward evidence about the provenance of assets that are suspected to be the proceeds of crime, and now seeks to bring a legal action that he hopes will be a first step in the moving of funds to the possible frustration of any victims and law enforcement agencies. There is an overwhelming public interest, he said, in the public knowing about such matters, particularly in the context of Jersey's efforts to be regarded as a well-regulated finance offshore centre.
26. Advocate Redgrave for the applicant counters that the origin of the funds that are suspected to be the proceeds of crime have never been in doubt, as they are derived from the business of the hedge fund, which involved, inter alia, the very transactions that are challenged in the U.S. class actions. It is not, he said, a case like that of National Crime Agency v Mrs A [2018] EWHC 2603 (Admin), in which Mrs A was challenging an unexplained wealth order. An order for her anonymity was set aside because the Court found unconvincing her claims as to the consequences to her in her own country if she were identified. She was the wife of a convicted former state banker who was imprisoned for embezzlement, was spending tens of millions of pounds in Harrods and on property and could not explain where it had come from.
27. The applicant had deposed as to the crippling effect of these funds being effectively being frozen, in that they were sitting idle and could not be deployed for investment or business operations. There was no evidence, said Advocate Redgrave, that the applicant wished to move funds to frustrate "victims" and law enforcement agencies. The use by Advocate Sharp of the word "victims" presumes guilt in respect of a person against whom no charges had been brought, and indeed, in respect of whom there was no criminal investigation. Equally, there had been no court ordered restraints over any funds.
28. I accept Advocate Redgrave's submission that there has been a developing judicial recognition that persons under police investigation have a reasonable expectation of privacy which is enforceable. In ERY v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2016] EWHC 2760 (QB), the High Court held that a suspect in a police investigation into financial crime has a reasonable expectation of privacy which is likely to outweigh the press's right to freedom of expression. In Sir Cliff Richard OBE v BBC [2018] EWHC 1837, an Article 8 Convention right to privacy was established in relation to a person who is being investigated for a crime prior to a charging decision and the corresponding need for a compelling, countervailing public interest before it is legitimate to identify that person.
29. The position in this case is different in that the applicant is not seeking to prevent publicity being given to a criminal investigation into the applicant's activities. Indeed, there is no such investigation. Instead, property in which the applicant has an interest has been effectively frozen, and the applicant's only remedy lies in the pursuit of civil proceedings, which ordinarily would lead to damaging publicity. There is a real difference, in my view, between disputed allegations of financial manipulation in civil class actions in the U.S. which are the subject of a regulatory investigation and it becoming publicly known that funds in which the applicant is interested have effectively been frozen in Jersey, because the police are suspicious that it represents the proceeds of the applicant's criminal conduct.
30. I accept the applicant's evidence both as to the serious damage that could be done to the applicant's financial business in which confidence is key, and that without anonymity in these proceedings, the applicant is effectively left without a remedy under a statutory regime where the informal freeze can last indefinitely. I am satisfied that we are not concerned here with the avoidance of embarrassment on the part of the applicant, and certainly not with convenience or expedience. In essence, on the facts of this case, I find that the consequences to the applicant are sufficiently severe to justify the displacement of the principle of open justice.
31. Until further order the Judicial Review hearing will therefore be held in private, but the wider public interest will be met by a judgment which addresses and explains the relevant legal issues by reference to the necessary factual background without identifying the applicant by name or by publishing information which would enable the applicant to be identified. I say "until further order" as there will be liberty to apply should the circumstances justifying anonymity change.