CL-2018-000297, CL-2018-000404, CL-2018-000590, - [2025] EWHC 2979 (Comm)

Fecha: 14-Nov-2025

The Proposed Grounds

The Proposed Grounds

13.

The grounds upon which SKAT sought permission to appeal were these:

(i)

Ground 1: I was wrong to conclude (in the case of each) that (a) the dividend payment representation, (b) the tax representation, and (c) the honest custodian representation, were not conveyed, objectively, by ‘Form + CAN’, read together in their context of an application for a refund of withheld Danish dividend tax.

(ii)

Ground 2: I was wrong, in the case of each primary respondent, to conclude that he did not understand (a) the dividend representation, or (b) the tax representation, to have been made to SKAT by the tax refund documents submitted to it, and/or I was wrong, for each of Sanjay Shah, Rajen Shah and Mr Klar, to conclude that he did not understand (c) the honest custodian representation to have been made to SKAT by those documents. (As formulated by SKAT, the second part of Ground 2, concerning the honest custodian representation, was said to apply also to Mr Horn, but I would not have allowed that even if I had otherwise granted permission on Ground 2: see paragraph 12 above.)

(iii)

Ground 3: I was wrong to conclude (in the case of each) that (a) the dividend payment representation (if made), (b) the tax representation (if made), or (c) the honest custodian representation (if made), did not induce SKAT to pay (any of) the invalid tax refund claims that were the subject of its claims.

(iv)

Ground 4: I was wrong to reject the secondary claims, and each of them, on the ground that SKAT had not been induced by fraud to make any relevant payments, since (and then to the extent that) in accordance with Grounds 1 to 3 I ought to have found that SKAT had been so induced, and in the case of the unjust enrichment claims I was also wrong to hold that they were bad in law in any event because they did not relate to enrichment at the expense of SKAT.

14.

Thus it was Ground 4 that gave rise to the third aspect of the decision to prepare what are now these written reasons as a fuller explanation of my decision to refuse permission to appeal (paragraphs 6-7 above). Ground 4, if well founded, would take SKAT only as far as saying that my judgment did not provide sufficient justification for the dismissal of the secondary claims if, on the basis of Grounds 1 to 3, I was wrong not to find that the primary claims, or at least some of them, had been made good at trial. That would not establish that any of those secondary claims was well founded. The judgment does not hold that but for the failure of the primary claims, and the ‘not at SKAT’s expense’ point for the unjust enrichment claims, the secondary claims, or any of them, would have succeeded.

15.

Against any given primary respondent, SKAT would have to succeed on all of Grounds 1, 2 and 3, for there to be a successful appeal against the dismissal of SKAT’s primary claims against that respondent. Against any given secondary respondent, SKAT would have to succeed on all of Grounds 1, 2 and 3 against one or more of the primary respondents, and then on Ground 4 against that secondary respondent, for there to be a successful appeal against the dismissal of SKAT’s secondary claims against that respondent. If SKAT were to succeed on Grounds 1, 2 and 3 against one or more, but not all, of the primary respondents, then success on Ground 4 in respect of any given secondary claim would require SKAT first to show that the subject matter of that claim (benefit or asset) represented, directly or indirectly, the proceeds of one or more of the primary claims that had thus been upheld on appeal.

16.

I find it convenient now to deal with the Grounds raised by SKAT in reverse order.