Bark & Co Solicitors

Cases of Note

These are our some of our cases of note.

R v Nadir

Description: Bark & Co have been instructed by the former CEO of Polly Peck International (PPI) in an alleged multi-million pound fraud. The client faced 66 counts of Fraud & Theft, but failed to appear in the 1993 trial. Mr Nadir has returned to the UK to fight to clear his name.

The trial date is now set for January 2012.

Significance: One of the first high profile SFO prosecutions.

R v Ravjani & Others

Bark & Co represented a client accused significant involvement in a complex contra-trading MTIC fraud. The alleged fraud was of a scale that prompted the Government to proffer the case as an explanation as to why the UK balance of payments were adrift for a particular year. Unfortunately, reporting restrictions prevent us from publishing the full outcome at this time.

R v X

Description: This matter involves an insider trading investigation at a number of banks and hedge funds and other large financial institutions conducted by the FSA and SOCA which Reuters reports has “sent shockwaves through the country's financial industry”.

Significance: This case involves significant press interest and involves the representation of a director at a very high profile financial institution.

R v CC & PF

Description: This case involves the arrest of nine directors of an ethical investment company investing in the energy sector. The value of the alleged fraud, which related to the company’s tax structure, is in excess of £85 million. It raises questions on the differences between tax evasion and tax avoidance. The company obtained tax benefits for research and development in the energy sector and secured investment from 750 specialist private investors.

Significance: This case will have far reaching consequences for the whole of the ethical carbon offsetting industry, as well as for all companies with similar tax structures. The company in question was advised by tax specialists and lawyers regarding the legislation involved. HMRC allege that the complex nature of the related companies and tax structures were formed for the specific reason of perpetrating a fraud while the company states that they were not only legitimate but standard industry practice.

R v F & P (Vantis Tax)

Description: We acted for former senior executives for a specialist tax division of Vantis Plc defending allegations of cheating the public revenue. They both vigorously deny the allegations made against them.

Significance: This case involves extremely complex tax, share valuation and trust issues, and raises serious questions concerning the boundaries of tax avoidance schemes and their use. It attracted significant media interest with coverage in the nationals and trade press.

R v S & Others

Description: Bark & Co is representing a client who is involved in a wide ranging FSA investigation into an alleged 11-handed insider dealing fraud. This matter revolves around a spread-betting company that was used to place derivative trades on share price movements. Trades were made close to, or before, significant and unexpected company announcements which influenced the share price in the direction of the placed trade. It is alleged that a ring of traders, some of whom had no previous experience in spread betting, were organised to perpetrate the fraud with the insider information originating from two well-known investment banks.

Significance: The value of the alleged fraud is over £3 million and involved insider information on more than 25 companies that the investment banks dealt with. This case is still at the investigation stage but charges are being brought.

R v W, W, W & D (Southwark Crown Court)

Description: Our client is charged with conspiracy to defraud and money laundering offences. This case follows a joint FSA and City of London Police operation and investigation into a boiler room fraud. It is alleged that several companies that were seeking venture capital were used as vehicles to generate appropriate share capital to sell to victims based in the UK. The boiler rooms were based overseas and unregulated by the FSA. They generated over £30 million in income which was then filtered through a complex network of companies and holding accounts and into UK and offshore accounts.

Significance: The fraud is so large that the FSA has determined that it is limiting the case to six primary front companies. Not only is this case a good example of the scale and increasing prevalence of this type of fraud, it also demonstrates how international operations are being used to bypass the UK financial regulators and authorities.

R v S, R, D, S, S & T (Southwark Crown Court)

Description: This was a six-handed prosecution of the founders and associates of the “Confidential Access” website. Our client is alleged to have used his business to facilitate the sale of false identity documents that were used to commit fraud and crime. The identity documents, which included passports, P45s, bank statements and other financial and identity documents, were marketed and sold as legal “novelty items”, but their accuracy means they were used by clients who were being investigated by the Metropolitan Police anti-terrorism unit. In a joint operation with the Hong Kong Organised Crime Team, the Confidential Access website was temporarily shut down and the servers and business records seized. The website subsequently reopened in another county and the authorities entered into an ongoing battle across several jurisdictions to force the website to close down.

Significance: This case provides a unique insight into the type of identity-based frauds that will become more commonplace in the future. It also shows the difficulties involved in dealing with international and cross-jurisdictional issues surrounding internet free trade and international payment systems. Not surprisingly, the case attracted media attention, although the details remain confidential.

R v L (Southwark Crown Court)

Description: Our client in this case is being re-tried after a trial held in 2008 failed to reach a verdict. The client is charged with cheating the public revenue of £250 million in a large-scale and complex MTIC VAT fraud in the mobile phone handset market.

Significance: The scale of the operation and subsequent investigation was impressive, with 42 arrests in 2003, 96 sets of premises searched and 260 computers and 500,000 documents seized, as well as substantial amounts of electronic data. This fraud is serious and involves highly complex forensic accountancy and international funds tracing aspects. Again, it has attracted considerable media attention.

R v L (Southwark Crown Court)

Description: iSoft was awarded a multi-million pound contract to implement an All Ireland software system. Bark & Co is representing a former director in connection with alleged accounting irregularities in relation to this contract. This case is in the FSA's own words the largest case they have ever investigated.

Significance: iSoft were involved in the implementation of the new NHS IT system, a large and politically sensitive project and the case has received extensive press coverage. It has therefore required extremely sensitive handling. The issues involved are also particularly complex and involve forensic legal and accountancy analysis.

iSoft related cases (representing X)

Description: iSoft was awarded a multi-million pound contract to implement an All Ireland software system. Bark & Co is representing a former director in connection with alleged accounting irregularities in relation to this contract. This case is in the FSA's own words the largest case they have ever investigated.

Significance: iSoft were involved in the implementation of the new NHS IT system, a large and politically sensitive project and the case has received extensive press coverage. It has therefore required extremely sensitive handling. The issues involved are also particularly complex and involve forensic legal and accountancy analysis.

R v R

Description: This is said to be among the biggest MTIC carousel frauds ever prosecuted. It involves a particularly complex form of MTIC fraud called ‘contra-trading’. Here, the perpetrator mixes a ‘clean’ chain of transactions and a ‘dirty’ chain. The key is that they act as importer in the clean chain and exporter in the dirty one, therefore offsetting legal imports against illegal exports, making the VAT claim relatively balanced and the fraud far harder to detect.

Significance: This case is said to be one of the biggest MTIC frauds ever prosecuted and involves billions of pounds worth of trade. It will give rise to national publicity and widespread public concern because MTIC fraud has become so widespread that it is responsible for the UK trade figures being completely miscalculated. In this instance there has been £170 million of fraud identified within the telecoms sector involving the international trading of mobile phones. Contra-trading is an increasing growth area of specialist defence where Bark & Co is among the leaders. This case has at present over 60,000 pages of exhibited prosecution materials with over 100,000 expected, making the estimated cost of prosecuting the case substantial (more than £1million).

R v L, R & H

Description: This was a high-profile SFO prosecution concerning fraudulent trading. The prosecution alleges that there was fraudulent trading over a 3-4 year period at Alfred McAlpine Slate Limited. This took the form of false invoicing and the concealment of the false information from the parent company, Alfred McAlpine plc, and their auditors, by way of forged loans, invoices and manipulation of management packs.

Significance: This case was the subject of a three-month internal investigation by PMCE Coopers Waterhouse and the City law firm, Ashurst. Press interest is high and the case has appeared on Sky News, in The Times, and The Guardian, as well as local papers, financial journals and Reuters. It is alleged that the discovery of the fraud led to a drop in the McAlpine Slate share price and contributed to the acquisition of McAlpine by Carillion plc. With over 50,000 pages of served evidence, this case was both complex and high profile. We were successful in achieving a lenient sentence for our client.

R v Lord Rodley, Coyne & Others

Description: This case involved a conspiracy to defraud the SMBC Bank in London of £227 million and money laundering the proceeds of the fraud. A security guard at SMBC bank, who had access to its computer system, allowed two Belgium computer experts entry into the bank and access to the computer systems outside working hours. They hacked into the bank’s systems to obtain passwords and to transfer funds to accounts set up to launder the proceeds of this fraud.

Significance:Three defendants stood a fully contended cut-throat trial. Our client (David Coyne aka Nash) is alleged to have been involved both in the main plan to defraud the bank and the money laundering as he was the owner of several offshore bank accounts that were allegedly set up to receive the funds

R v F, D & Others

Description: The case results from an investigation into a successful multi-million pound international lottery scam, which began with a complaint concerning unsolicited e-mails from the Philippines. The scam involved claims that the victim would be the beneficiary of a percentage of an estate worth $10.2 million.

Significance: The alarm was raised by Barclays Bank in New York. A joint investigation by the FBI and Metropolitan Police then uncovered a number of victims of the fraud, who were resident in various places, ranging from the USA, to Malaysia, Japan and the Middle East. The joint investigation resulted in six arrests. This case demonstrates our ability to handle complex international fraud cases, requiring the gathering of evidence and information in a number of jurisdictions.