Mr Robey relied on two unreported English authorities, both being decisions of the English Divisional court, namely Reg. -v- Director of Serious Fraud Office ex p. -Wallace Duncan Smith (19th Dec. 1991) and Reg -v- Director of serious Fraud Office (12th June 1992) in which the Court expressed itself in wide terms. In the former case, which was followed in the latter, Leggatt LJ expressed himself thus in giving the judgment of the court in an application for judicial review to quash or render invalid notices issued under ss. 2(2) & (3) of the criminal Justice Act 1987 (an enactment which is similar to the investigation Law of 1991 but not identical): -

'In essence the notice served on Coopers obliged them to produce the documents referred to in it. The fact that those documents concerned the applicant and were the subject of confidentiality as between Coopers and him cannot have entitled either of them to object to the production of the documents: Coopers, because the notice was directed to them and they had no ground for refusing to comply with it, and the applicant because the notice was not directed to him and there was nothing for him to refuse to comply with. It appears to me that if a person under investigation could prevent the production of documents by third parties on the ground that they owed him a duty of confidentiality or on the grounds of failure to comply with the procedure prescribed by the statute then the progress of any investigation would be stultified".

These authorities appear to have been concerned with applications singularly lacking in merit. They appear to rule out any remedy in English law in relation to the exercise of a power of this kind to an applicant, whether the bank or other body under a duty of confidentiality, or whether the person for whom they are said to act or to whom they owe a duty of confidence, on any ground and in any circumstances. We respectfully decline to follow these authorities as part of the law of this Island. We do not consider that, once a degree of control over administrative acts is accepted by the Court, the interest of pursuing criminal investigations is such as to permit the authorities (in this instance at the request of a foreign state) to exercise powers of this nature without the possibility of control by the Courts (the exercise of the same involving interference with rights of privacy which we conceive it to be the duty of the Courts to protect against an abuse or excess of power). In declining to apply the English authorities to which we have referred we draw comfort from the fact that the Royal Court in Jersey and the Courts at first instance and on appeal in the Isle of Man have not declined a remedy on the ground of lack of locus standi in relation to similar criminal investigation provisions in their jurisdictions. Our conclusion therefore is that we do not rule out the Applications on the ground of lack of standing at this stage, but this question can be revisited when we hear the substantive appeal.