Jeffrey Lewis instructed the excellent specialist fraud counsel Sam Stein QC - leading our very own Jeremy Ornstin, Elena Abraham was the solicitor in support - who successfully defended a client against a £16m Conspiracy to defraud prosecution brought by West Berkshire District Council's Trading Standards department. Working with the FCA, the prosecution followed on from a segment in the BBC One's ‘Rip Off Britain’ series and a television expose produced by SKY News accusing the defendants' companies of being involved in a landbanking scam.
It was alleged that the three defendants were the principals of three separate companies which set about dividing plots of land for sale as investments to members of the public. They intended the land to be rezoned and sold on to large developers, after which the investors would make considerable profit. This is known as a Land bank investment scheme, which is also a UCIS ( Unregulated Collective Investment Scheme).
It was robustly argued on behalf of our client that the business model was far from a fraud, which was supported by advice from leading professionals in planning and development as well as specialist lawyers. The defendants based their model on the Kate Barker Review 2004, which was commissioned by the government and which indicated that more land would need to be rezoned and developed in order to keep up with the shortage of housing supply in the UK. Throughout the months leading up to the trial and during the course of the trial itself, there were almost daily headlines about the shortage of housing supply and the changing policy on planning being led by the government.
This case involved in excess of 350,000 items of evidence contained on servers and computers, and the Lewis Nedas team was able to use specialist software to identify further evidence of which the prosecution had not enjoyed similar access. This exercise proved crucial to setting out the defences of all three defendants and supporting the same with hard evidence. The Lewis Nedas team led the way on behalf of all three defendants in successfully challenging numerous assertions made by the prosecution, including demonstrating that refunds to investors were in excess of £1.6m compared to the initial figure put forward by the prosecution, which came to half of the correct amount.
Following an 11 week trial at Southwark Crown Court, the jury returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty in respect of all three defendants.
Our client, an experienced businessman, was delighted.
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