Bassington & Ors v HM Procureur

Lazarenko & anor v HM Procureur

Uoti v HM Procureur

Judgment delivered by the President

Three applications for leave to appeal have been presented to this court, in each case being for leave to appeal against the decisions of the Deputy Bailiff rejecting applications made before him for various forms of relief in connection with two notices issued by Her Majesty's Procureur under the terms of the criminal Justice (Fraud Investigation) (Bailiwick of Guernsey) Law 1991, to which we will refer as "the Investigation Law of 1991".

Of those notices, the second in point of time was addressed to Credit Suisse Trust Limited ("CST") at their St. Peter Port office and required that company to answer questions or otherwise furnish information to the Procureur's nominees with respect to matters relevant to the investigation of "suspected offences of serious or complex fraud," the Procureur declaring himself satisfied that there was good reason to exercise the powers conferred on him for the purpose of investigating the affairs of the persons, entities or companies under investigation.

That Notice, which was dated the 2nd July 1998, named eight persons, entities or companies, namely Bassington Ltd, two Ukrainian companies and five Ukrainian nationals. of these Ukrainian nationals, Mr Lazarenko and Kr Kiritchenko were until comparatively recently the Prime minister of the Ukraine and his adviser respectively. They made a separate application from the other persons named and have been separately represented.