On 14 July 2026, the High Court of Justice (Gill J) discharged in its entirety a restraint order made under the Proceeds of Crime and Asset Recovery Act, 2020 against an individual and three trading companies, with costs to the applicants: The Director of Public Prosecutions v Gregory Gilpin Payne and Others, Claim No. SKBHCV2026/0140. The order had been granted without notice on 19 June 2026; the discharge application, filed on 1 July, was heard on an urgent basis and decided within twenty-five days of the order being made.
The Court discharged the order on four independent grounds: the material before it did not establish objectively reasonable grounds to believe that any applicant had obtained property from criminal conduct, showing “facilitative or corporate-level movement rather than demonstrated receipt by a named Applicant”; the assets of the corporate applicants — none of which had been charged — were not shown to be realisable property, corporate assets belonging to the company and the veil being pierced only in exceptional circumstances; no real risk of dissipation was established, cross-border dealings and corporate structures being insufficient without concrete evidence of steps to move assets; and the Crown breached its duty of full and frank disclosure on the without-notice application, a later affidavit being unable to “retrospectively validate an order obtained on an incomplete or misleading presentation”.
D. Victor C. Elliott-Hamilton, with Adana D. Romeo, appeared for the successful applicants.
The Court discharged the order on four independent grounds: the material before it did not establish objectively reasonable grounds to believe that any applicant had obtained property from criminal conduct, showing “facilitative or corporate-level movement rather than demonstrated receipt by a named Applicant”; the assets of the corporate applicants — none of which had been charged — were not shown to be realisable property, corporate assets belonging to the company and the veil being pierced only in exceptional circumstances; no real risk of dissipation was established, cross-border dealings and corporate structures being insufficient without concrete evidence of steps to move assets; and the Crown breached its duty of full and frank disclosure on the without-notice application, a later affidavit being unable to “retrospectively validate an order obtained on an incomplete or misleading presentation”.
D. Victor C. Elliott-Hamilton, with Adana D. Romeo, appeared for the successful applicants.