Capper v Chaney & Anor

Where Parliament has assigned a dispute to a specialist tribunal or court, a claimant cannot ordinarily use High Court proceedings to obtain indirectly the result available through the statutory procedure. Such proceedings may constitute an abuse of process, particularly where the High Court claim seeks to determine the same issue as proceedings already entrusted to another court.

Even if the High Court retains a residual jurisdiction, it should decline to exercise it where the proceedings closely approximate, in substance, adjudication of the issue reserved to the other court. Procedural advantages such as wider disclosure do not justify circumventing Parliament’s choice of forum. Proceedings brought principally to create an issue estoppel or otherwise influence the decision of another competent court pursue a collateral objective and may be struck out.

Police seized approximately £330,000 from a safety deposit box rented by the first defendant and detained it under Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The first defendant did not contest the claimant’s assertion that £250,000 belonged beneficially to the claimant.

The claimant sought a declaration of beneficial ownership in the High Court. The Commissioner of Police contested the claim and applied to strike it out or, alternatively, to stay it pending forfeiture proceedings in the magistrates’ court. Master Bowles refused both applications and granted permission to appeal.

By the time of the appeal, forfeiture proceedings had been commenced. The central issue was whether the High Court claim was an abuse of process because it sought to determine, or pre-empt determination of, an issue allocated by statute to the magistrates’ court.

1. Appeal allowed. The claim was struck out.
2. Part 5 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 allocates jurisdiction over recovery of property to the High Court, but jurisdiction over forfeiture of cash to the magistrates’ court, subject to appeal to the Crown Court. The proceedings are civil proceedings. The statutory allocation of jurisdiction must be respected.
3. The principle stated in Autologic Holdings plc v Inland Revenue Commissioners [2006] 1 AC 118 applies beyond specialist tribunals. It also applies where Parliament has entrusted the issue to a court of summary jurisdiction. A High Court claim is an abuse where it is an indirect means of obtaining the same result as could be obtained by following the statutory route.
4. Here, the essential factual issue in both proceedings was ownership of the cash. The High Court declaration was intended to create an issue estoppel for use in the magistrates’ court and therefore sought to pre-empt that court’s decision. That was a collateral objective and constituted an abuse of process.
5. Even assuming a residual High Court discretion, the approach stated by Robert Walker J in Glaxo Group Ltd v Inland Revenue Commissioners [1995] STC 1075, and approved in Autologic, required the High Court to decline jurisdiction because the two proceedings closely approximated each other in substantial effect.
6. The claimed procedural benefit of wider disclosure did not outweigh Parliament’s allocation of the dispute to the magistrates’ court. The claimant’s earlier unsuccessful application for release also made the High Court proceedings undesirable forum shopping. A stay would serve no useful purpose: either the forfeiture proceedings would determine ownership against the claimant, or they would establish his ownership and make the High Court claim unnecessary.

1. High Court (Chancery Division): Master Bowles refused the Commissioner’s applications to strike out or stay the claim on 16 April 2010, but granted permission to appeal.
2. High Court (Chancery Division): the appeal was allowed and the claim was struck out.