Antonelli v Secretary of State for Trade and Industry

For the purposes of the Estate Agents Act 1979, a conviction may qualify even if it predates the Act or was entered by a foreign court. The relevant question is whether the offence involves fraud, dishonesty or violence, rather than whether it has an equivalent offence under United Kingdom law. Violence is not confined to violence against people; it may include force or threatened force against property. A notice remains sufficient where it identifies the conviction and the statutory category relied on, even if the decision notice describes the same offence by a different qualifying characteristic. The conviction is only a precondition. The decision-maker must still determine whether the person is unfit to carry on estate agency work.

The appellant, a property agent, had been convicted in Michigan in 1973 of burning real property and was later made subject to an order prohibiting him from carrying on estate agency work under section 3 of the Estate Agents Act 1979. The Director General of Fair Trading relied on the conviction as an offence involving violence, while the decision notice also described it as involving fraud or dishonesty.

The Secretary of State dismissed the appeal, and Buxton J dismissed the appellant’s appeal to the High Court. The appellant appealed to the Court of Appeal on five grounds concerning temporal application, foreign convictions, double criminality, violence against property, and the difference between the proposal notice and the decision notice.

1. Appeal dismissed. The court held that conviction in section 3(1)(a)(i) of the Estate Agents Act 1979 includes convictions entered before the Act came into force. Applying the fairness-based approach in L’Office Cherifien des Phosphates v Yamashita Ltd v Shinnihon Steamship Co. Ltd [1994] AC 486, the purpose of protecting the public, the Director’s continuing discretion, the treatment of spent convictions under section 5(4), and the seriousness of the relevant offences supported that construction.
2. The reference to conviction was not confined to convictions by courts in the United Kingdom. Section 3(1)(a)(i) did not impose a double-criminality requirement. The statutory language focuses on whether the offence involves fraud, dishonesty or violence, not whether the foreign offence corresponds to a specific offence under United Kingdom law.
3. Violence was not limited to violence against the person. In the statutory context, an offence involving force or threatened force against property, including setting fire to property, may fall within section 3(1)(a)(i).
4. The Director’s decision was not invalid because the proposal notice referred to violence whereas the decision notice also referred to fraud or dishonesty. Both notices identified the same conviction, and the offence could properly involve more than one statutory characteristic. The appellant had an opportunity to address whether the offence involved any such characteristic, although he made no representations.
5. Kennedy LJ and Aldous LJ agreed with Beldam LJ. The application for leave to appeal to the House of Lords was refused. The respondents’ costs were not to be enforced without leave.

• Court of Appeal: Appeal dismissed.
• High Court, Queen’s Bench Division: Buxton J dismissed the appeal from the Secretary of State’s decision on 11 May 1995.
• Secretary of State: The appellant’s appeal from the Director General’s order was dismissed on 6 August 1993.
• Director General of Fair Trading: An order was made prohibiting the appellant from doing estate agency work.