December 3, 2024
The High Court has recently given judgment in Norman v N & CJ Horton Property [2024] EWHC 2994 (Ch). Alexander Cook KC and Josh O’Neill acted for the Claimants in the Crump Claim, bringing an application for strike and/or summary judgment in respect of the Defendants’ money laundering defence. The application was heard alongside two related applications by the same Defendants to amend their pleadings in ancillary proceedings to include this defence of money laundering.
The Crump Claimants were successful in persuading the court that the Defendants had no real prospect of establishing the money laundering defence on which they sought to rely. Master Clark’s judgment considers whether the test in the criminal case of R v Anwoir [2009] 1 WLR 980 (which held that a party who is unable to specify a predicate criminal offence can establish money laundering by showing that the circumstances in which the subject property was handled gives rise to an “irresistible inference” that it could only have been derived from crime) applies to civil proceedings, and the manner in which it is to be applied (at paragraphs 35 to 56).
