AC-2024-LON-001762 - [2025] EWHC 2293 (Admin)

Fecha: 11-Sep-2025

The arguments of the parties

142.

Mr Cooper alleged that there were two material mistakes of fact which rendered the SSHD’s decision unfair. The Statement of Facts and Grounds and the Claimant’s skeleton argument quoted the SSHD’s pre action protocol response dated 16 April 2024 which (unbeknown to the Claimant) was itself quoting the undisclosed Annex B, as well as the text of the Submission. Mr Cooper’s case was that the SSHD had mistakenly proceeded on the basis that:

“Both offences concern identical allegations/offending…” ([5] of the Submission and [12(a)] of the pre action protocol response). This, submitted Mr Cooper, is wrong given that the Warrant alleged additional offences of money laundering and tax fraud/evasion, and given that these offences attract sentences of up to 12 and 8 years’ imprisonment respectively.

ii)

“All the victims are based in the United States” ([12(a)] of the pre action protocol response). Again, this was wrong. It was clear from the text of both the Request and the Warrant that there were victims elsewhere in the world and that the Portuguese State was itself an alleged victim of money laundering and tax evasion. There is additional information, which would have been readily available had the SSHD made any inquiries, which showed that the victims were not confined to companies and people who were based in the USA. Mr Cooper relied on a passage, in Ms Cuellar’s affidavit in support of the Request, which referred to the Claimant boasting that he had hacked “an Asian loan agent website” and to other material to show that victims of RaidForums were not all based in the USA, including a National Crime Agency press release dated 12 April 2022 which said that the compromised data included information stolen from UK companies. Ms Pinho, in her submissions of 13 June 2024 also states that the Portuguese police conducting the investigation describe the victims as “residing in various locations around the world…. which is why international co-operation with countries such as Sweden, Romania, Germany and the United Kingdom was promoted”.

143.

Mr Cooper submitted that these mistakes were as to existing facts which were established in the relevant sense, that the Claimant and his advisers were not responsible for these mistakes and that they must have played a material part in the SSHD’s reasoning. In relation to materiality, he particularly emphasised that the SSHD’s own guidance at Annex A to the Submission states that the relative seriousness of the offences criterion “will usually determine which claim takes precedence”.

144.

Ms Cumberland did not argue that section 179 of the Extradition Act 2003 was not a context in which the parties share an interest in co-operating to achieve the correct result. Nor did she dispute that the complaints raised by the Claimant related to existing and established facts, or suggest that any error was the fault of the Claimant.

As to the statement that the allegations/offending were identical, Ms Cumberland accepted that they were not identical but submitted that they were “extremely similar”. It is evident from the Request and the Warrant that the wording and description of the offending is almost the same. The true nature of the Claimant’s argument is that the Portuguese authorities have categorised the offences slightly differently but these differences reflect the distinct legal systems of the two requesting States and do not bear on the conduct alleged. Nor does the difference in the number of counts. In this connection, Ms Cumberland relied on an analogy with the approach to determining whether there has been an extradition offence set out in Norris v The Government of the United States of America [2008] UKHL 16, [2008] 1 AC 920, where the focus is on the conduct alleged. In effect, her submission was that the admitted error was not material.

ii)

As to the reference to the victims of the Claimant’s offending being based in the USA, Ms Cumberland submitted that the references relied on by Mr Cooper to show that this is not the case do not detract from the fact that the Submission accurately refers to “the conduct in the main”. When comparing victims of competing requests the main issue is whether they are in either requesting State rather than other countries and there is only one pointer towards there being any victim in Portugal. This is the reference to tax evasion/fraud which is corollary offending rather than the central offending and is not particularised in any detail. Ms Cumberland also emphasised that the Submission said that “The stated victims and witnesses in each request are based in the US” and she pointed out that the Request lists categories of US law enforcement personnel as witnesses who will testify to the offending alleged. She submitted that the Request demonstrates the importance of the USA’s evidence which it had gathered in the course of its investigation. Her overall submission was, in effect, that there was no error in relation to the location of the alleged victims or, if there was, such error was not material.