Letters of request. The claimants brought an action for fraudulent misrepresentation. The documents disclosed by the defendants indicated there had been criminal conduct including bribery of the Azeri authorities. The Director of the SFO served notices under section 2 of the CJA 1987 requiring both parties to produce the relevant documents to the SFO. The claimants sought permission under CPR 31.22 to hand over the documents. The defendants opposed that application. The court granted permission as sought by the claimants. Rix LJ, delivering the judgment of the court, noted that the court was resolving a conflict between the public interest in the proper disclosure of documents in civil litigation and the separate public interest in the investigation of allegations of serious fraud. He then proceeded to weigh up those two conflicting interests, paying close attention to the particular circumstances of the case under appeal. Rix LJ concluded that ‘the public interest in the investigation or prosecution of a specific offence of serious or complex fraud should take precedence over the merely general concern of the courts to control the collateral use of compulsorily disclosed documents’.
Judges:
Lord Justice Peter Gibson Lord Justice Rix Lord Justice Longmore
Citations:
[2004] EWCA Civ 798, [2004] 3 All ER 648, [2005] 1 WLR 104
Links:
Statutes:
Criminal Justice Act 1987 2, Civil Procedure Rules 31.22
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Tchenguiz v Director of The Serious Fraud Office and Others CA 31-Oct-2014
The appellant challenged an order of the Commercial Court refusing permission for documents disclosed in English litigation to be used in litigation proceedings in Guernsey. The principal issue is whether the judge correctly weighed up the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
International, Litigation Practice
Updated: 11 June 2022; Ref: scu.198406