Assets Recovery Agency v Customs and Excise & Ors

Summary judgment may be given where the defendant has no real prospect of successfully defending the claim or issue and there is no other compelling reason for a trial. The court may assess the credibility and inherent plausibility of the evidence at the summary judgment stage. A late account that is inconsistent with contemporaneous admissions, documents and surrounding circumstances may be rejected without a trial where it is plainly incredible. However, where a defendant raises a potentially material case supported by information not previously investigated, fairness may require a short adjournment for focused enquiries and disclosure. Such enquiries must be specific and must not become a speculative fishing exercise.

The Director of the Assets Recovery Agency sought summary judgment under Part 24 of the Civil Procedure Rules in respect of approximately £3.5 million seized from Brian Charrington after investigations into substantial cocaine importations. Charrington claimed that the money represented lawful commission from diamond sales. Curtis Warren claimed that the money was his, while Mario Halley had disappeared. The court considered whether Charrington and Warren had real prospects of successfully defending the claim and, in Warren’s case, whether further investigation of possible Customs or police material was justified.

1. Summary judgment test. Under Civil Procedure Rules 1998, Part 24 and CPR 24.2, summary judgment was appropriate where the defendant had no real prospect of successfully defending the claim or issue and there was no other compelling reason for a trial.
2. Charrington. Although summary judgment without oral evidence and cross-examination is a strong step, the court was entitled to form a view of the evidence. Charrington’s diamond-commission account was inherently incredible and contradicted his contemporaneous admissions, the cocaine contamination of the money, the note referring to “Mario debt”, and the evidence obtained when he was seeking to avoid prosecution. The late account had not been raised when his solicitors sought return of the money. The court rejected it and granted summary judgment against him.
3. Warren. Warren’s assertion that the money was his appeared unlikely to succeed, but the claimant accepted that it had not had a proper opportunity to investigate possible material supporting that assertion. Further consideration of Warren’s position was therefore adjourned. The enquiry was to be focused on specific documents or matters and was not to become a vague fishing exercise.
4. Costs were ordered against Charrington, subject to the usual order concerning his public funding. The Warren issue was adjourned to the beginning of the next term, with directions for targeted requests and enquiries.

Not stated in the judgment.