April 29, 2026
In an important judgment handed on Friday 24 April 2026, Mr Justice Leech upheld the decision of Master Clark (Norman v N & CJ Horton Property [2024] EWHC 2994 (Ch)), in which she granted summary judgment to the Claimants (for whom Alexander Cook KC and Josh O’Neill acted at first instance, and on appeal) in respect of the Defendants’ money laundering defence, and refused amendment applications to plead those money laundering allegations in related proceedings.
The judgment will be of interest to practitioners in civil fraud, and also has broader application to civil cases involving money laundering allegations.
At [111]-[125], Leech J considered the application of the Anwoir test (whereby a party who is unable to specify a predicate criminal offence can nonetheless 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) to civil proceedings, and held that it requires no modification when applied under the civil standard of proof.
At [191]-[195], Leech J considered what would be required in order for a pleading of money laundering to be sufficiently particularised, and concluded that an “irreducible minimum” of such a plea is for the pleading party to give proper particulars of the “criminal property” which is the subject matter of the offences alleged to have been committed.
Alexander Cook KC and Josh O’Neill acted for several of the successful Respondents to the appeal, instructed by Darren Kenny and Ryan Hughes of Fieldfisher LLP.
Read the judgment here.
