Larkfield Ltd v Revenue and Customs Prosecution Office v May and others [2010] EWCA Civ 521, [2010] All ER (D) 86 (May)
Court of Appeal, Civil Division, Sir Andrew Morritt C, Etherton and Elias LJJ, 12 May 2010
A dispute as to the beneficial ownership of property alleged to be realisable property is to be resolved in accordance with ordinary principles of property law, save to the extent that the Criminal Justice Act 1988 (CJA 1988) provides.
Andrew Mitchell QC and Aidan Casey (instructed by Clyde & Co LLP) for L. John McGuinness QC and Rupert Jones (instructed by the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office) for the Revenue.
The claimant company was the registered proprietor of a flat in London, which it had acquired in August 1999. The Revenue claimed that M was the beneficial owner of the flat. M pleaded guilty in September 2001 to conspiracy to cheat the Revenue in a VAT carousel fraud. In August 2002, a confiscation order was made which included the value attributed to the flat on the basis that it should be included within M’s realisable assets
