Herbert Smith Freehills successfully defends private prosecution of senior executive of UK listed company

On 31 January 2025, the High Court quashed criminal proceedings which had been initiated by a private prosecutor against our client, Mr Tony Bates, five months earlier.

In August 2024, Mr Bates was summonsed to appear at Highbury Corner Magistrates' Court relating to his tenure as Chief Financial Officer of Yell Group plc (later hibu plc) over a decade ago. The private prosecutor, who was a former shareholder of the company, alleged that Mr Bates oversaw a complex £1 billion fraud. At that hearing, the District Judge refused to set aside the private prosecution and transferred the case to Reading Crown Court for a criminal trial in October 2024.

An application for judicial review was filed in September 2024 in respect of the District Judge's decision, along with a successful application to the High Court for urgent interim relief to stay the criminal proceedings pending the outcome of the judicial review.

The judicial review was heard in the High Court before Mrs Justice Yip on 23 January 2025 who ordered the quashing of the criminal proceedings. Yip J found that the private prosecution was "misconceived, vexatious and abusive", the private prosecutor "produced no evidence at all" to support his allegations against Mr Bates, and "the summons should never have been issued". A full copy of the judgment can be found here (under the name Antony Bates).

The case represents the first reported private prosecution of a listed company executive in the UK as well as the first private prosecution brought by shareholders of a listed company in the UK.

Herbert Smith Freehills represented Mr Bates in this case, alongside criminal counsel Adrian Darbishire KC (QEB Hollis Whiteman) and Stuart Biggs (Cloth Fair Chambers).