CL-2018-000297, CL-2018-000404, CL-2018-000590, - [2025] EWHC 2364 (Comm)

Finally, I consider this all to have been a red herring in the present case. In a claim for damages for conspiracy to injure by unlawful means, the harm in respect of which damages can be awarded is the harm, if any, caused in fact by the use of the unlawful means that are within the scope of the conspiracy. In the present case, if the unlawful means in question had been deceits practised upon SKAT that it had proved, that would have given rise to no difficulty. Proving the deceits as unlawful means would have included proof that those unlawful means caused SKAT to pay the tax refund claims in question. But none of the other alleged unlawful means could be said to have caused SKAT to make either (i) the tax refund claim payments that may have been traceably the origin of the breaches of trust alleged, or (ii) later tax refund claim payments made in response to further tax refund claims. SKAT submitted that it had “suffered losses to the extent that it is unable to recover the proceeds of the [tax reclaim payments] by reason of their concealment, laundering or distribution through the equitable wrongs committed by the [relevant defendants]”. But it made no attempt to establish any such loss at trial.