A twenty-three-minute-hearing in criminal proceedings brought by the FCA against the former directors of Collateral (UK) Limited was held earlier today.
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Reporting by Daniel Cloake.
Collateral (UK) Limited purported to be a so-called Peer-to-Peer lending firm, which facilitated investments crowdfunded by members of the public.
Collateral (UK) Limited and two related companies entered administration in April 2018.
The two defendants, Andrew Currie, 57, and Peter Currie, 58, both deny two charges under the Fraud Act 2006 and one charge under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The trial, with an estimated length of 4-weeks, is expected to begin on April 11th 2023.
The mouseinthecourt has been observing and reporting on hearings in this matter, hopefully providing a level of independent oversight to the process.
11th Jan 2022: “FCA commences criminal proceedings against Collateral Directors“
26th Jan 2022: “Collateral Currie brothers appear in court following FCA action“
23rd Feb 2022: “Trial date set for Currie brothers“
17th Oct 2022: “Collateral Currie brothers trial on track as Case Management Hearing held“
11th Nov 2022: “Collateral Currie brothers trial update”
11th Jan 2023: “FCA Collateral Case – January Update“
Case management hearings are subject to strict reporting restrictions. What we can say about todays hearing is that:
Both defendants were not required to attend, and did not.
The barristers appeared in person.
His Honour Judge Martin Griffith ordered that a further hearing should be listed in February 2023.
Following the conclusion of the trial we can now report the following:
This was a hearing in two parts.
The application made on behalf of Peter Currie and an application made on behalf of the mouseinthecourt blog.
The PC application
Mr Hendron, on behalf of Mr Peter Currie, explained that he had been “unwilling to abandon the section 8 application on the last occasion”. This had been a request for more information surrounding the evidence of a Mr Richard Tall of DWF Solicitors.
That application was no longer being pursued and instead a witness summons was now being requested to be effective against DWF Solicitors and a Mr Greg Morris. Mr Morris currently describes himself on LinkedIn as a “senior manager in the Risk team at DWF Group Plc with group-wide responsibilities”, although this description may have been different at any material time.
Mr Hendron explained that the two proposed witnesses had been served with the request the previous day. We were told the provisions of the Criminal Procedure Rules meant both the recipients and the FCA would have until February 10th 2023 to file written submissions in response. A further hearing could be held on 22nd February to discuss matters further.
Mr Biggs, on behalf of the FCA, observed that Mr Morris had already provided over 2,100 pages of material. These were said to include the so-called ‘matters management record’ including digital printouts, records of meetings, telephone calls and correspondence with the FCA and the Insolvency Service.
Mr Biggs said it would be “very surprising if they had held back any category of material” in circumstances where they had been requested under a statutory provision to disclose.
HHJ Griffith concluded “we’ll see by the 22nd what we’re doing”.
The mouseinthecourt application
“The other matter, is the question of the case summary” began Mr Biggs.
Indeed, at a previous hearing the mouseinthecourt had observed that HHJ Griffith had been asked to read a 63-page case summary and a paper copy had been passed to the Judge in order to do so.
This humble blogger took the view that in the interests of open justice the document should be disclosed.
A request to the FCA press office was declined so an application was made to the court. I suspect if you are reading this then you have a degree of interest which will motivate you to:
And read my reply to the response
In my application I said:
“The FCA list ‘protect consumers from bad conduct’ as one of their three ‘operational objectives’ on their website. It is submitted that there is a legitimate public interest in the scrutiny of how the FCA has engaged this objective. In this case, specifically what the FCA knew, when they knew it, and what action was taken when.”
The court was also encouraged to decline the application by Mr Hendron who said he commended the comments made by the FCA in their response and that this was “the first example in this case which I’m in absolute agreement”.
The Judge read his e-mail address out to the court to enable my reply to be sent to him. Looking at me he said that’s “not an invitation to bombard me with e-mails. I have enough of that from the lawyers”.
Ultimately the judge declined to grant my application saying that these preliminary hearings concerned “discreet matters” and that “the original case summary, as it stands, does not in any way have anything to do with those applications”. I was “jumping the gun”, but it was envisaged that I would be provided with the ‘Opening’ once it had been deployed in open court.
In any event the mouseinthecourt made another written request for the opening statement after the start of the trial and was told:
“The written Opening note and the written statements we hold were not read out aloud in their entirety in open court. CPR Par 5B.14 -16 there applies- open justice requires only access to the part of the document that has been read aloud. The court should consider whether it is proportionate to order one of the parties to produce a suitably redacted version. If not, access to the document is unlikely to be granted. Open justice will generally be satisfied by the document being read aloud in open court. A full version of the note may be shown or provided to an accredited member of the press subject to a condition that matters not read out are not reported. Even this exercise therefore requires that the parts not read out aloud are identified by us. Having considered this issue with our counsel, we are of the view that it is not proportionate for us to review the Opening Note or the statements for the purpose of highlighting/redacting.“
I don’t intent to re-litigate matters here, but I do observe that if this was a civil claim for fraud then non-parties would have access to the particulars of claim, the defence statement, and the reply even before the matter touched the listing office, let alone appear before a judge in court.
Quite why there’s a difference between the criminal and the civil courts is something I’d be keen to hear about.
Case details:
Court 5 Southwark Crown Court
Before His Honour Judge Griffith
26th January 2023 10.00am
Application Hearing
Case number: T20220056
CURRIE Andrew
CURRIE Peter
Mouse in the Court 