Media lawyers have described the high court’s decision to permit the naming of a Conservative donor in a global money-laundering case involving a business associate as a boost for open justice.
Javad Marandi, who donated more than £663,800 to the Tories between 2014 and 2020, fought a lengthy legal battle with the BBC to remain anonymous in a claim for forfeiture of assets brought by the National Crime Agency (NCA) against three other individuals.
Marandi has denied any wrongdoing and in October 2021 his lawyers were initially successful in obtaining an anonymity order in the forfeiture proceedings. However, in May 2022 a district judge ruled that Marandi could be named, and in March the high court affirmed that decision, lifting the anonymity order.
Mr Justice Mostyn, sitting with Lord Justice Warby, said the lower court judge had correctly balanced “on the one hand the core constitutional principle of open justice against, on the other, the potential damage to the claimant’s private and family life”. He said his “only surprise” was that the order was granted in the first place, given “procedural unfairness as well as a distinct lack of merit”.
Mark Stephens, a partner at Howard Kennedy, said: “I think fair to say that this is a good reminder to all judges that the open justice principle is one of the basic tenets on which our justice system is founded. These kinds of orders, which in this case has been demonstrated to be inappropriate, are clearly being dished out too lavishly.”
Stephens, a trustee of Index on Censorship, said there had been an increase in anonymity order claims by the rich and powerful, who often employed expert lawyers against opponents, “so this is a decision which is very much to be welcomed and puts things back on a sort of even keel”.
A judgment in February last year ordered that family members of Javanshir Feyziyev, a multimillionaire Azerbaijani politician, forfeit £5.63m of suspicious funds brought into the UK via a complex money-laundering scheme nicknamed the “Azerbaijani laundromat”.
It found that $37m (£30m) from the Azerbaijan laundromat was paid into the Latvian bank account of Avromed Company (Seychelles), a business of which Marandi was a beneficiary.
The NCA’s case, accepted by the judge, was that Avromed Company (Seychelles) was being used to launder the proceeds of crime.
Stephens said: “There’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t know about the findings of the judge. And in fact, arguably, people who are undertaking business with him [Marandi] have an interest in knowing about it.”
Persephone Bridgman Baker, a partner at Carter-Ruck, said: “The judgment emphasises the importance of open justice and the strict requirements for any derogation: the criticism made by one judge was that the way in which Mr Marandi issued his application appeared to be ‘a strategic decision to give almost the shortest possible notice to the NCA, and in reality none to the press, [so] that the application for the RRO (reporting restriction order) was effectively uncontested’.
“The judgment is a stark reminder about what is required to successfully ask a court to derogate from open justice.”
A statement on behalf of Marandi’s lawyers said he “vehemently denies any wrongdoing”, adding: “At no point has Mr Marandi been investigated or questioned by the authorities … Mr Marandi is deeply disappointed at the court’s decision to lift reporting restrictions, knowing the reputational damage that is likely to follow.”
