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

Mr Hoogewerf, not unlike Mr Hogarth (see paragraph 20 above), did himself no favours in the witness box. He was wound up by the process, and discomfort from a dental issue he was suffering may not have helped. As a result, he was in general rather argumentative and diffuse. He was also affected by what I judged to be a tendency to say something that might sound like an answer without pause or the application of much thought. As his cross-examination progressed, he became unwilling to the point of obtuseness to agree anything that was not evident in a document, and sometimes even to agree something that was evident. In my view, he was suffering from a “Deny everything, Baldrick!” state of mind engendered by the pressures of the litigation.

That obtuseness was at its peak when Mr Hoogewerf would not agree that it was evident to him at the time that the Solo Model trading was centrally driven and directed by GSS, so that it did not involve independent trading decisions by any of the participants. It is obvious on the documents that that was indeed evident to Mr Hoogewerf at the time. Moreover, in my judgment Mr Hoogewerf would not have allowed any broking operation for which he was responsible to have even the limited involvement in the GSS trading that his broking operation at Solo had, and later that West Point had when he was CEO, unless it had been explained to him that it was a structured trade, pre-arranged, coordinated and balanced by the GSS team to ensure that there was no meaningful market or counterparty risk.

However, it does not follow from that that Mr Hoogewerf was told, or otherwise appreciated, that the settlement model being used was the share-less loop model that I have described, let alone that the entire business was constructed as a means by which to practise fraud upon SKAT (and other tax authorities), if that was the reality. Like Mr Knott, I am confident that Mr Hoogewerf was aware at the time of his duties to report to the FCA if he had any suspicion at the time that the GSS trading was or might be unlawful or a means for committing fraud. The unsatisfactory nature of much of Mr Hoogewerf’s oral evidence is explained, in my view, by how the pressures of the litigation had got to him by the time he came to give that evidence. It did not cause me to doubt Mr Hoogewerf’s integrity; and I accept his evidence that he would have reported any suspicion he had that Solo was engaged in a fraud.