BL-2021-002235 - [2025] EWHC 1966 (Ch)

The claimant (now applicant) has issued the present contempt of court application alleging that the defendant (now respondent) has breached the terms of the injunction. In particular, the application notice focuses on two documents. The first is a letter dated 2 January 2025 from the respondent to officers of the applicant. The second is a document headed “Statutory Notice under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002”. This was sent not only to the applicant, but also to others, including the applicant’s statutory auditor, the applicant’s solicitors, and two banks (not the two banks that were alleged to be involved in the fraud). The applicant says that the terms of these two documents, prepared and sent by the respondent, breach the injunction. The applicant also points to other documents produced and distributed by the respondent since then, which the applicant says also breach the injunction.

Box 12 of the prescribed form of contempt application (N600) is headed “Summary of facts alleged to constitute the contempt”. Here, the applicant has written the following:

“3.

On 2 January 2025, Mr Stanford asserted that he was fraudulently induced to sign a Deed of Undertaking dated 13 March 2009 between himself and Kaupthing Bank h.f. shortly after Kaupthing Bank h.f. and Kaupthing Bank Luxembourg S.A. had entered into a conditional settlement agreement dated 3 March 2009 (‘CSA’), without knowledge of the CSA, with the supposed consequence that the Sale Agreement and Settlement Agreement that were the subject of the proceedings leading to the Order were both void.

4.

On 9 May 2025, Mr Stanford purported to issue a ‘Statutory Notice under the Proceeds of Crime Act’ (the ‘POCA Notice’, with the stated consequence that the Shares were classified as ‘criminal property’ under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. This has been followed by the service of a number of supposedly related 'notices'. Mr Stanford has corresponded with the Court in this connection, requesting that the Court file certain materials on the Court file. He has also filed an application notice seeking a ‘stay of any contempt proceedings threatened or intended’ by the Applicant unless and until the purported 'statutory classification' under POCA has been ‘rebutted under oath or addressed by lawful disclosure’.

5.

In breach of the Order, the effect of Mr Stanford's conduct between December 2024 to the present date is to directly and/or indirectly assert a right, interest or claim in or to the Shares by impugning the lawfulness of the Applicant's legal or beneficial interest.”