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The Court of Appeal (Lady Chief Justice, Bean and Andrews LJJ) has today handed down judgment in World Uyghur Congress v National Crime Agency [2024] EWCA Civ 715, a challenge to the decision of the National Crime Agency (NCA), the governmental body responsible for the investigation of serious and organised crime in the UK, not to investigate alleged offences/civil recovery under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA 2002) in relation to cotton products imported into the UK originating from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China (XUAR). The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and quashed the decision of the NCA.
The Appellant (and Claimant in the Administrative Court), an NGO, presented the NCA and other Government departments with evidence that serious human rights abuses were occurring in the XUAR cotton industry on a large scale, and that forced labour accounted for a significant proportion of cotton originating from China. On the basis that products derived from forced labour outside the UK can amount to ‘criminal property’ giving rise to a money laundering offence or ‘recoverable properly’ for the purposes of civil recovery under POCA 2002, the NCA was invited to commence an investigation. The NCA, while not challenging that evidence, indicated that it was minded not to proceed with an investigation under POCA 2002 or other legislation.
The Appellant challenged the two respects in which the NCA justified its decision not to proceed with any investigations. The first was the NCA’s approach of refusing to carry out any investigative steps unless and until a specific consignment had been identified that was the product of the criminality alleged. The second was the NCA’s view that the provision of ‘adequate consideration’ within a supply chain would prevent goods that were imported into the UK later in that supply chain from being identified as criminal property or recoverable property. The Appellant contended that both propositions were wrong in law.
The Court of Appeal agreed with the Appellant’s analysis and found that, in both respects, the NCA’s decision not to investigate was unlawful. The NCA’s decision was quashed and the matter will now be remitted to the NCA for reconsideration on the proper legal basis.
Admas Habteslasie was instructed by Bindmans LLP for the Appellant.
