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

When Mr Shah acknowledged, as he did, that CANs would convey to the reader an entitlement to the gross dividend amount, on his evidence as a whole I consider that he had in mind the circular reasoning he intended to deploy for his defence on the tax representation, to which I turn next, i.e. he had in mind to say that he thought at the time the client did have an entitlement to the gross amount because of an entitlement to be paid the 27% by SKAT as a tax refund.

SKAT rightly accepted that Mr Shah did not admit that any Solo Model CAN made the tax representation. SKAT submitted that his evidence on this topic was characterised by affected misapprehension, leading to incoherence. In my judgment, Mr Shah did not find the questions easy to deal with, but that was mostly because they were put without making clear what precisely was meant and, therefore, what precisely he was being asked to agree or dispute. It will be clear from my consideration in the main body of this judgment of what CANs purported to state, considering the matter objectively, that it is important to be precise as to what is meant by, for example, the idea of the named client having suffered a withholding of tax, or of tax having been deducted from the payment received by the named client.