{"id":933589,"date":"2026-05-21T02:31:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T00:31:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.com\/jurisprudences\/national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T02:31:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T00:31:55","slug":"national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2","status":"publish","type":"kji_decision","link":"https:\/\/kohenavocats.com\/en\/jurisprudences\/national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2\/","title":{"rendered":"National Crime Agency v GKC (No 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Neutral Citation Number: [2026] EWHC 929 (Admin) Case No: AC-2025-LON-002288 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE KING'S BENCH DIVISION ADMINISTRATIVE COURT SITTING IN LONDON Friday, 24th April 2026 Before: MR JUSTICE FORDHAM – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Between: NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY Applicant – and \u2013 GKC (No.2) – and – (1) BRITISH BROADCASTING CORPORATION (2) TIMES MEDIA LTD (3) ASSOCIATED NEWSPAPERS LTD (4) TELEGRAPH MEDIA GROUP LTD Respondent Interveners – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Andrew Sutcliffe KC and Fiona Jackson (NCA Legal) for the Applicant Tim Owen KC (Gherson LLP Solicitors) for the Respondent Claire Overman (BBC Legal) for the Interveners Jonathan Browning of Bloomberg LP, in person – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Hearing date: 25.3.26 Further written submissions: 27.3.26 to 1.4.26 Draft judgment: 13.4.26 – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Approved Judgment – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – FORDHAM J This Judgment was handed down remotely at 10am on 24.4.26 by circulation to the parties or their representatives by email and by release to the National Archives. FORDHAM J: PART 1: INTRODUCTION 1. This judgment is about the application of the open justice principle to contested High Court proceedings about an unexplained wealth order (\u201cUWO\u201d) and interim freezing order (\u201cIFO\u201d). It is about how Article 8 privacy rights, discussed in ZXC v Bloomberg LP [2022] UKSC 5 [2022] AC 1158 (see \u00a717 below), fit with the legal framework governing derogations from open justice, when applied to legal proceedings which interweave the High Court into a civil recovery investigation by a state entity. 2. I have already given Judgment No.1 [2026] EWHC 573 (Admin). The National Crime Agency (\u201cNCA\u201d) had applied for an UWO and IFO. That was a without-notice application, pursuant to s.362I(1) and s.362J(5) of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. It was granted by Bourne J, for reasons set out in a private judgment [2025] EWHC 1908 (Admin), after a hearing which was conducted in private pursuant to \u00a711.1 of the Practice Direction on Civil Recovery Proceedings (\u201cthe CRP Practice Direction\u201d) and NCA v Hussain [2020] EWHC 432 (Admin) [2020] 1 WLR 2145 (see \u00a720 below). The Respondent applied to set aside the UWO and IFO. I dismissed that application for the reasons given in Judgment No.1. 3. I now have to decide whether to discharge orders which I had made for interim anonymisation of the Respondent with reporting restrictions. We convened a separate public hearing, with notice to the media and several media organisations have intervened. Mr Owen KC for the Respondent says my interim orders should be maintained. Ms Overman for the Interveners says the orders should be discharged. Mr Sutcliffe KC and Ms Jackson for the NCA agree with the Interveners. So do I. My conclusion is that the individualised Article 8\/ Article 10 balancing exercise comes down decisively in favour of discharging the interim anonymisation and reporting restrictions. My reasons are in Part 5 below. To get to them, I will need to describe some building blocks (Part 2), to set out the Respondent\u2019s argument (Part 3), and to analyse some key topics (Part 4). Uncontroversial points 4. I saw the following points as uncontroversial. First, that if anonymity were to be discharged: (a) the redacted Glossary from Judgment No.1 (\u00a73) would be published unredacted; (b) Bourne J\u2019s private judgment would be published; but (c) I would need to adopt a holding position to protect the Respondent\u2019s appeal rights. Second, that the following contents from the Glossary have, in any event, proved over-inclusive and should be unredacted now, because doing so involves no risk of identification of the Respondent: Annotated term:Meaning: (now unredacted) residential apartment (GL): seller\u2019s solicitors (GL)Clyde & Co LLP buyer\u2019s solicitors (GL)Spencer West LLP tenanted apartment (GL): seller\u2019s solicitors (GL)Howard Kennedy LLP buyer\u2019s solicitors (GL)Chan Neill Solicitors LLP transferor\u2019s solicitors (GL)Chan Neill Solicitors LLP transferee\u2019s solicitors (GL)Chan Neill Solicitors LLP UWOs and open justice 5. The issue which I have to decide is forward-looking. But I am going to pause to look backwards. As I explained in Judgment No.1 at \u00a72, I heard the Respondent\u2019s application to set aside the UWO and IFO at a public hearing with interim anonymity. I declined her request for a hearing and determination in private. I was concerned that this would place the proceedings \u201cbelow the radar of open justice\u201d. I was satisfied that interim anonymisation and reporting restrictions would protect any legitimate interests. 6. In the end, everyone agreed that this had been appropriate. But it turned out that I was in good company. The discussion in R (Javadov) v Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court [2021] EWHC 2751 (Admin) [2022] 1 WLR 1953 (DC, 29.9.21) at \u00a7\u00a746-48 (see \u00a751 below) alerted me to NCA v A (Ruling on Anonymity) [2018] EWHC 2603 (Admin) [2018] ACD 132. The substantive judgments in that case were about UWOs and politically exposed persons (PEPs): see NCA v Hajiyeva [2018] EWHC 2534 (Admin) [2018] 1 WLR 5887 and [2020] EWCA Civ 108 [2020] 1 WLR 3209. But in NCA v A (Ruling on Anonymity) Supperstone J was dealing with open justice and Mrs Hajiyeva\u2019s application to set aside a UWO and IFO. He refused Mrs Hajiyeva\u2019s request for a private hearing, making an interim anonymity order: see [2018] EWHC 2534 (Admin) at \u00a76. Having dismissed her application to set aside the UWO and IFO, he discharged the anonymity order (see [2018] EWHC 2603 (Admin)), a decision from which the Court of Appeal (Sales LJ) later refused permission to appeal (see [2020] EWCA Civ 108 at \u00a78). 7. NCA v Baker [2020] EWHC 822 (Admin) (see Judgment No.1 at \u00a71) was a judgment on a successful application to set aside UWOs obtained without notice by the NCA, where there was no anonymisation. Director of the Serious Fraud Office v Schools [2025] EWHC 1146 (Admin) was a judgment on an on-notice application for an UWO and IFO, where Pepperall J refused to sit in private and declined anonymisation. Mr Owen KC told me his researches indicate up to 10 other UWO cases where respondents were not publicly identified. To the UWO cases can be added the account freezing order case of Javadov (\u00a728 below), and the disclosure order case of Hao (\u00a753 below), where hearings were in public without anonymisation. 8. The NCA made its without-notice application to Bourne J on 18 July 2025. The transcript begins with the words \u201cIN PRIVATE\u201d. But, in fact, it starts with an exchange between Counsel and the Judge \u201cin public\u201d. Mr Sutcliffe KC said this: Before I address you on the substantive matters, could I first address the question of whether this hearing should be in public or in private. At the moment, it is in public, so anybody could walk in, and we are conscious that sometimes journalists like to appear and to make submissions on these matters. It doesn\u2019t look as though there is anyone intending to do that, but could I take your Lordship to the case of NCA v Hussain, which is in the authorities bundle at tab 10, because Mr Justice Murray addressed in detail the issue of whether this sort of hearing, an application for an unexplained wealth order, should be heard in public or in private \u2026 \u2026 the NCA submits that, given the early stage of its investigation, the need for privacy arises not just because of the potential impact of the Respondent being on notice of the NCA\u2019s investigation in terms of the risk of property being dissipated, but also because of the potentially disproportionate personal and reputational impact on a respondent of the fact that a UWO has been obtained, if that fact is publicised. In this context, the court may want to have particular regard to the fact that the respondent is a 23-year-old student, currently residing in London with leave to remain in the UK until 30 September of this year\u2026 The Judge then made this decision: I am satisfied that we should sit in private in accordance with the presumption in the Practice Direction, which hasn't been rebutted by any information available to me so far. I will say a little more about that when I give judgment \u2026 There was a pause for the usher to do the \u201cnecessary to ensure that we are in private\u201d. 9. Within the private judgment, the Judge said this: The application has been made without notice in accordance with s.362I(1) of POCA and \u00a7\u00a78.2 and 18.6 of the [CRP] Practice Direction, and has been heard in private in accordance with \u00a711.1 of the Practice Direction. In that regard, I have also been referred to NCA v Hussain [2020] 1 WLR 2145 at \u00a7\u00a772 to 92, and to CPR 39.2(3)(a), (c), (e) and (g), and I was and am satisfied, as the court was in Hussain, that a private hearing was necessary to secure the proper administration of justice. The reasons are the same as in that case, in particular the fact that the NCA\u2019s investigation is at a very early stage, that assets may be dissipated if the application comes to the respondent\u2019s attention, and that the case involves serious allegations against the respondent, which engage her right to privacy \u2026 10. NCA v Hussain is the leading case on UWO\/IFO applications being without-notice and heard in private (see \u00a7\u00a720-25, 48-53 below). But one feature of Hussain is that the press were alerted, and initially challenged the decision to hear the application in private (Hussain at \u00a713). Another feature of Hussain is that the Court at the outset made an anonymity order (see \u00a71). By contrast, the present case involves these three reference-points: (1) Mr Sutcliffe KC told Bourne J (see \u00a78 above) that the NCA was \u201cconscious that sometimes journalists like to appear and to make submissions on these matters\u201d, adding that it did not \u201clook as though there is anyone intending to do that\u201d. But how was the press supposed to have been in a position to do so? (2) Mr Owen KC submitted to me (9.2.26) that: \u201cNo application has been made by the media to lift the privacy order made by Bourne J\u201d. But there was no such order. (3) Mr Sutcliffe KC and Ms Jackson submitted to me (9.2.26) that the Respondent did not include, in her application to set aside the UWO and IFO, any application for a private hearing or anonymisation. Nor was there notification to the press, under best practice (cf. R (Marandi) v Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court [2023] EWHC 587 (Admin) [2023] 2 Cr App R 15 at \u00a7\u00a769, 85iv). 11. The Interveners say questions relating to transparency and UWO\/IFO applications are worthy for consideration by the Civil Justice Rules Committee. They refer to developments in criminal proceedings (Criminal Procedure Rules 6.4(3)(b)(ii)) and SIAC appeals (SIAC Practice Note on Anonymisation Orders and Related Measures \u00a7\u00a724-28). The NCA says that it would have no objection. I confine myself to these observations about three features of what happened at the start of this case. (1) First, the Court\u2019s published Cause List listed the NCA\u2019s without-notice application as \u201cBOM v BMR\u201d. This was an impediment. No member of the public or press would have had a clue who \u201cBOM\u201d was, or what application was being made. The Interveners accept that there is good reason for an administrative cipher for the Respondent. But they object to a cipher for the enforcement authority. The NCA says it was not consulted by the Court and would want to consult with other authorities as to \u201cwhether the listing of all hearings in UWO proceedings should identify the relevant enforcement authority by name\u201d. I have been unable to see any reason for obscuring the identity of the NCA. I think an appropriate entry in the Cause List would be National Crime Agency v BMR; or, even better, National Crime Agency v BMR (Unexplained Wealth Order). (2) Second, the hearing began in public (\u00a78 above). I think that was a course which could promote open justice. But there was already the listing impairment. (3) Third, at the end of the hearing, the Judge was not invited to take or consider any further step in public. Under CPR 39.2(5) (see \u00a715 below), where the Court sits in private, or where the Court orders anonymity, the Court\u2019s order \u201cshall be published\u201d on the judiciary website \u201cunless and to the extent that the court otherwise directs\u201d. This was not raised with the Judge. Nor was the Judge invited to consider announcing in public that a UWO\/IFO application had been granted, albeit on terms which were private and for reasons delivered in private. I think this was another impediment. PART 2: BUILDING BLOCKS UWOs 12. UWOs are discussed in Judgment No.1 at \u00a7\u00a74-9. They are \u201cpart of an investigative regime\u201d (Hajiyeva CA at \u00a711), being part of a \u201ccivil recovery investigation\u201d (2002 Act s.341(2)). Part 8 comprises \u201ca \u2018toolkit\u2019 of investigative powers\u201d and UWOs are within it as \u201cone of a number of investigation tools available to the NCA\u201d (Baker at \u00a7\u00a710, 61). UWOs are obtained by satisfying the Court as to applicable criteria (s.362B) and residual discretion (Baker at \u00a7\u00a721-22). The associated IFO (see Judgment No.1 at \u00a713) must be necessary to avoid the risk of any subsequent \u201crecovery order\u201d being frustrated (s.362J(2)). If ordered on a without-notice application, the respondent\u2019s right to apply to set aside the UWO means the Court applies the criteria afresh (Baker \u00a760). The UWO requires the recipient to explain their interest in property and how they obtained it (s.362A(3)). Failure to comply can trigger a rebuttable presumption (s.362C(2)) of \u201crecoverable property\u201d in Part 5 civil recovery proceedings. After a response to an UWO, the enforcement authority has to decide what enforcement or investigatory proceedings, if any, are to be taken in relation to the property under Parts 2, 4, 5 or 8 (Baker at \u00a718iv). Regulatory landscape 13. Part 8 is part of a \u201cbroader regulatory landscape\u201d (see Javadov at \u00a714) \u2013 with related provisions governing multiple aspects of the investigation, preservation and recovery of the proceeds of crime \u2013 having these principal areas: (a) civil freezing and recovery of criminal property in the High Court (Part 5); (b) taxation of criminal profits (Part 6); (c) search, seizure and summary forfeiture of cash, listed assets and bank balances (Part 5, Chapters 3, 3A and 3B); (d) powers of investigation (Part 8, with the High Court having jurisdiction over orders which are part of a civil recovery investigation or an exploitation proceeds investigation, along with UWOs; otherwise, orders that are part of any other form of investigation may be granted by a Crown Court judge); (e) criminal restraint orders (Part 2, exercisable by a Crown Court judge); (f) seizure of realisable property other than cash or exempt property (Part 2, by an appropriate officer with appropriate approval); and (g) post-conviction confiscation. Open justice 14. The contours of the open justice principle were set out in Marandi at \u00a743 (see \u00a742 below). These three points were identified as applicable \u201cacross the board\u201d (see R (Rai) v Winchester Crown Court [2021] EWCA Civ 604 [2021] 2 Cr App R 20 at \u00a7\u00a722-23): [1] The general rule is that the administration of justice must be done in public. The public and the media have the right to attend all court hearings and the media is able to report those proceedings fully and contemporaneously. [2] Any restriction on these usual rules will be exceptional. It must be based on necessity. [3] The burden is on the party seeking the restriction to establish it is necessary on the basis of clear and cogent evidence. CPR 39.2 15. CPR 39.2 applies to High Court proceedings, including UWOs. It provides: 39.2 General rule \u2013 hearing to be in public. (1) The general rule is that a hearing is to be in public. A hearing may not be held in private, irrespective of the parties\u2019 consent, unless and to the extent that the court decides that it must be held in private, applying the provisions of paragraph (3). (2) In deciding whether to hold a hearing in private, the court must consider any duty to protect or have regard to a right to freedom of expression which may be affected. (2A) The court shall take reasonable steps to ensure that all hearings are of an open and public character, save when a hearing is held in private. (3) A hearing, or any part of it, must be held in private if, and only to the extent that, the court is satisfied of one or more of the matters set out in sub-paragraphs (a) to (g) and that it is necessary to sit in private to secure the proper administration of justice \u2013 (a) publicity would defeat the object of the hearing; (b) it involves matters relating to national security; (c) it involves confidential information (including information relating to personal financial matters) and publicity would damage that confidentiality; (d) a private hearing is necessary to protect the interests of any child or protected party; (e) it is a hearing of an application made without notice and it would be unjust to any respondent for there to be a public hearing; (f) it involves uncontentious matters arising in the administration of trusts or in the administration of a deceased person\u2019s estate; or (g) the court for any other reason considers this to be necessary to secure the proper administration of justice. (4) The court must order that the identity of any person shall not be disclosed if, and only if, it considers non-disclosure necessary to secure the proper administration of justice and in order to protect the interests of that person. (5) Unless and to the extent that the court otherwise directs, where the court acts under paragraph (3) or (4), a copy of the court\u2019s order shall be published on the website of the Judiciary of England and Wales (which may be found at http:\/\/www.judiciary.uk<\/a>). Any person who is not a party to the proceedings may apply to attend the hearing and make submissions, or apply to set aside or vary the order. The CRP Practice Direction 16. Section II of the Practice Direction: Civil Recovery Proceedings deals with civil recovery proceedings under Part 5 of the 2002 Act, including a \u201cclaim \u2026 for a recovery order\u201d (\u00a74.1). An application for a property freezing order may be made without notice (\u00a75.3), and the person affected can apply to set it aside (\u00a77.1). Section III deals with applications under Part 8 of the 2002 Act. An application for an UWO and IFO can be made without notice (\u00a7\u00a78.2, 18.6) and the person affected can apply to set it aside (\u00a712.1A). Bespoke provisions govern access to court documents (\u00a79). Under \u00a711.1, a UWO\/IFO application: \u2026 will be heard and determined in private, unless the judge hearing it directs otherwise. Section IV makes further provision, including as to production orders (\u00a713), warrants for search and seizure (\u00a714) and disclosure orders (\u00a715). ZXC 17. ZXC was decided by the Supreme Court in February 2022. The case was about whether an online newspaper had committed a civil wrong, by publishing details of a criminal investigation, derived from a confidential letter. It was a decision about \u201cthe limit imposed by the law on the ability to report \u2026 police suspicion prior to charge\u201d (\u00a7104). Bloomberg had published a news article, revealing that the claimant, a corporate CEO, had been interviewed as part of a criminal investigation into fraud and corruption. That information was derived from a confidential letter requesting inter-agency cooperation. The claimant brought a tort claim for misuse of private information (MPI), winning in the High Court (17.4.19), the Court of Appeal (15.5.20) and Supreme Court (16.2.22). The tort of MPI has two stages (see \u00a747): (i) whether the claimant has a reasonable expectation of privacy in the relevant information; and if so (ii) whether that expectation is outweighed by the countervailing interest of the publisher\u2019s right to freedom of expression. ZXC decided that, at MPI stage (i), a \u201clegitimate starting point\u201d is that a person under criminal investigation has, prior to being charged, a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of information relating to that investigation (\u00a7146). 18. These are some further features of ZXC: i) First, that the \u201creasonable expectation of privacy\u201d arises in conjunction with ECHR Article 8 (the right to respect for private and family life). MPI is a cause of action designed to reflect the values of Article 8 and Article 10 (freedom of expression) (ZXC at \u00a746iii). The \u201ctouchstone of private life is whether in respect of the disclosed facts the person in question had a reasonable expectation of privacy\u201d (\u00a746iv). The reasonable expectation of privacy is linked to whether Article 8 is \u201cengaged\u201d (\u00a755). Its strength is linked to the weight to be attached to Article 8 rights (\u00a770). A reasonable expectation of privacy generally applies, for example, to information concerning an individual\u2019s physical or mental health (\u00a772). ii) Second, that the \u201clegitimate starting point\u201d was not a new discovery. It was traced through judgments of the Courts, back to 2014-2016 (\u00a7\u00a791-94). iii) Third, that the \u201clegitimate starting point\u201d was supported by strong public policy considerations, concerning unfair reputational damage (\u00a7\u00a780-99). Relevant \u201cconcerns\u201d had been voiced by judges, inquiry reports, the College of Policing, the Met Police, the Independent Office of Police Conduct, the DPP, the Home Affairs Select Committee, and the Government (\u00a780). These were the strong themes (\u00a781): First, the growing recognition that as a matter of public policy the identity of those arrested or suspected of a crime should not be revealed to the public has now resulted in a uniform general practice by state investigatory bodies not to identify those under investigation prior to charge. Second, the rationale for this uniform general practice is the risk of unfair damage to reputation, together with other damage. Third, the practice applies regardless of the nature of the suspected offence or the public characteristics of the suspect. To be suspected by the police or other state body of a crime is damaging whatever the nature of the crime. The damage occurs whatever the characteristic or status of the individual. Fourth, there is uniformity of judicial approach, at first instance in a series of cases and in the Court of Appeal in this case, based on judicial knowledge that publication of information that a person is under criminal investigation will cause damage to reputation together with other damage, irrespective of the presumption of innocence. This has led to a general rule or legitimate starting point that such information is generally characterised as private at [MPI] stage [i]. iv) Fourth, that the \u201clegitimate starting point\u201d was not undermined as unsound, by claiming that it underestimated \u201cthe public\u2019s ability to observe the legal presumption of innocence\u201d (\u00a7\u00a7100, 108). Although in Guardian News (\u00a726 below) at \u00a766, Lord Rodger had said \u201cthe law proceeds on the basis\u201d that \u201cmost members of the public understand\u201d that \u201cyou are innocent unless and until proved guilty in a court of law\u201d, Khuja (\u00a727 below) had identified \u201cthe public\u2019s understanding\u201d as a question of fact (\u00a7107) and had cast doubt on whether judicial confidence in public perception was \u201ca realistic reflection of the position\u201d (\u00a7106). The legal presumption of innocence applies to juries given legal directions in criminal trials, but here there was \u201conly one answer\u201d, \u201cnamely\u201d that \u201cpublication of information that a person is under criminal investigation\u201d means \u201cthe person\u2019s reputation will ordinarily be adversely affected causing prejudice to personal enjoyment of the right to respect for private life\u201d (\u00a7108), the degree of which harm \u201ccan be profound and irremediable\u201d (\u00a7109). 19. ZXC was about the press publishing information about an individual being the subject of a criminal investigation. It was not a case about the open justice principle. There were these three ways in which open justice featured in ZXC: i) First, there was a question about anonymising the claimant, because of the nature of the claim: see [2019] EWHC 970 (QB) [2019] EMLR 20 at \u00a73. ii) Second, there was an identifiable horizon. It was common ground that, if a person was charged with a criminal offence, there could from that point no longer be the reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of being under criminal investigation (SC at \u00a777). At that point \u201cthe information is of an essentially public nature\u201d. This is \u201cthe point at which the process of the court has been engaged\u201d, where \u201cthe suspect (now defendant) will appear in a criminal court\u201d (\u00a7\u00a798-99). This identifiable horizon had a rationale which was directly concerned with the applicability of the open justice principle. Here is how it was put (\u00a777): it was common ground that if someone is charged with a criminal offence there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy. We consider, generally, that to be a rational boundary, as the open justice principle in a free country is fundamental to securing public confidence in the administration of justice: Scott v Scott [1913] AC 417. Consequently, whenever a person is charged with a criminal offence the open justice principle generally means that the information is of an essentially public nature so that there can be no reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to it. iii) Third, there was recognition of another open justice setting, where the relevant individual had been investigated and not charged, but where the press was reporting the administration of justice. This was Khuja (\u00a727 below), which raised a \u201cdifferent issue\u201d about \u201cpermissible reporting of evidence given in public during a criminal trial\u201d (ZXC at \u00a7\u00a7103-104). The Supreme Court did not discuss other open justice scenarios, such as suspicion-based asset freezing orders in Javadov (\u00a728 below). That is unsurprising. Bloomberg could not invoke the open justice principle as a basis for denying or defeating the reasonable expectation of privacy. Hussain 20. Hussain was the High Court case about UWO\/IFO applications being without notice and heard in private (\u00a788). It was decided in February 2020. Mansoor Mahmood Hussain was a 39 year old Leeds-based businessman involved with property development companies. In May 2019, the NCA made a without-notice application to the High Court for an UWO and IFO, explaining that Mr Hussain was suspected of involvement in serious criminality in connection with Bradford-based crime groups involved in drugs, firearms, fraud and money-laundering offences. After a without-notice hearing conducted in private on 12 July 2019, Murray J made the UWO and IFO. On 20 February 2020 he gave full reasons for the orders, and for why the hearing had been conducted in private: [2020] EWHC 432 (Admin) [2020] 1 WLR 2145. The judgment in Hussain decided (see \u00a722 below) that the \u201cpresumptive starting point\u201d is that a UWO (and any associated IFO) application will be made \u201cwithout notice\u201d and \u201cheard in private\u201d (\u00a788), in accordance with \u00a711.1 of the Practice Direction (\u00a716 above), given the likely engagement of CPR 39.2(3) limbs (a), (c), (e) and (g) (\u00a715 above). 21. By the time Murray J\u2019s judgment was given, Supperstone J had made a Part 5 (s.245A) property freezing order against Mr Hussain, after a public hearing on 12 February 2020. That meant the fact of the UWO and IFO had ceased to be confidential, and on that basis it was held appropriate to discharge anonymisation (see \u00a718). A property freezing order is granted based on the Court being satisfied that there is \u201ca good arguable case\u201d that there is \u201crecoverable property\u201d (s.245A(5)). This can be compared to the non-anonymisation in the account freezing order (s.303Z1) in Javadov: see \u00a728 below. 22. In Hussain, the NCA strongly submitted that the hearing should be in private; that no balancing exercise arose; and that there was no conflict with open justice. A raft of points were advanced. Mr Owen KC says, with force, that what the NCA was saying in Hussain contrasts with what it is now saying in urging the discharge of anonymity in the present case. The NCA in Hussain emphasised this potent trilogy: (i) the very early investigative stage; (ii) the threshold of suspicion; and (iii) the reputational impact for the individual. It was a potent trilogy embodied in Murray J\u2019s conclusions at \u00a788: in light of the nature and purpose of the UWO application, CPR r 39.2(3) is highly likely to be engaged, requiring the court to hold the hearing in private to secure the proper administration of justice. Given, in particular, (i) the very early stage of an investigation at which a UWO application will be sought by an enforcement authority, (ii) the relatively low threshold for obtaining a UWO under section 362B of POCA and (iii) the potentially disproportionate personal and reputational impact on a respondent of the fact that a UWO has been obtained if that fact is publicised, several sub-paragraphs of CPR r 39.2(3) are likely to be engaged, most notably, sub-paragraphs (a), (c), (e) and (g), particularly in a case such as this where the UWO application involves consideration of the Serious Crime Requirement. This was anticipated by the statutory framework and guidance applicable to UWOs, which makes it clear that, while close and careful regard must be had to the specific circumstances of each case, the presumptive starting point is that a UWO application will be made without notice and that the hearing of the UWO application and any related IFO application will be in private. 23. Here are further points which the NCA was making in Hussain \u2013 and which the Court indicated it substantially accepted (see \u00a788) \u2013 relating to \u201csensitive information, both confidential and personal, about the respondent\u201d (at \u00a784i to vi): (i) The considerable media interest in UWOs is undeserved. A UWO is merely a tool designed to assist with information-gathering during the early preliminary stages of an investigation, where there is a dearth of information available to the NCA. Consequently, the threshold tests for the application are relatively low. The Holding Requirement and the Value Requirement are not difficult to satisfy. As to the Income Requirement and the Serious Crime Requirement, each depends on there being reasonable grounds for suspicion and no more. The test for suspicion is fairly low, and may be established by reference to evidence that would fall short of that necessary to establish actual involvement in crime \u2026 (ii) Consequently, a UWO application is designed (a) to assist the NCA at the very early stages of its investigation, at a time when it has relatively little information and (b) to be an information-gathering tool. The obtaining of a UWO does not mean that the NCA will necessarily proceed with a civil recovery investigation or proceed to take advantage of any further or more intrusive investigative measures available to it. (iii) The result is that a UWO application necessarily sets out in detail the fact that the NCA suspects that: (a) if the PEP Requirement applies, the respondent is a politically exposed person who has been involved in (most likely) embezzlement and corruption; or (b) if the Serious Crime Requirement applies, as in this case, the respondent is a person who has been involved in very serious criminality \u2026 (iv) The UWO application sets out the foregoing detail, together with detailed information about the respondent\u2019s income and finances, yet this is done at a stage where the investigation, and underlying evidence, is embryonic. Some of the information will be from public sources, but much of it will be likely to have come confidentially from other authorities and agencies \u2026 and other third parties. (v) Plainly the content of that confidential information, if made public, is likely to have a personal and reputational impact on the respondent. The notion that the press or any other member of the public should be able to hear of the NCA\u2019s suspicions as to the respondent\u2019s character and criminal involvement, and details of the amount and suspected source of the respondent\u2019s wealth, in circumstances where the respondent is not even aware of the fact that the hearing is happening, let alone has the opportunity to seek to protect his confidentiality and reputation, is obviously unfair to the respondent, not to mention contrary to the interests of justice. Plainly, therefore, sub-paragraph (e), as well as sub-paragraph (c), of CPR r 39.2(3) is engaged. (vi) Indeed, even if the application is on notice, for similar reasons sub-paragraph (g) of CPR 39.2(3) would also almost certainly be engaged. There is no justification for a respondent\u2019s character being put forward for the type of public trial by media that often follows any media interest, at such an early stage of the investigation. Indeed, were that invariably a risk, then proportionality might require in practice that the NCA would have to apply a far higher threshold test as to the evidence and certainty of guilt than the statute requires before proceeding to make an application. That outcome would undermine the intended function of the UWO jurisdiction. 24. Here are \u201csupplementary\u201d points which the NCA was making in Hussain (\u00a791(iii) and (iv)), which the Court indicated it accepted (see \u00a792): (iii) The UWO Application and the IFO Application involved consideration of detailed personal and confidential information about [Mr Hussain], his finances, and his wealth, engaging sub-paragraph (c) of CPR r 39.2(3). (iv) As detailed in the NCA\u2019s submission regarding satisfaction of the Serious Crime Requirement, Mr Hussain is suspected of involvement in serious crime. It would plainly be an intrusion into his privacy for those suspicions to be aired in public, at a stage where they are no more than suspicions. A UWO offered Mr Hussain the chance satisfactorily to explain his wealth and to maintain his good character. Publicity of the NCA\u2019s interest would severely undermine that. For these reasons, sub-paragraphs (c), (e) and (g) of CPR r39.2(3) were engaged. 25. These are some features of Hussain: (1) The points which were made by Mr Sutcliffe KC in Hussain chime with points which he made to Bourne J in the present case (see \u00a78 above). (2) The Court in Hussain was being encouraged by the NCA to address the position where an application is made on-notice (\u00a784vi: see \u00a723 above). The NCA was arguing (see \u00a782) that a \u201cpresumption of privacy\u201d applies to a UWO application \u201con notice\u201d, being concerned with the respondent\u2019s \u201crights\u201d. (3) The Court in Hussain (at \u00a7\u00a758-60) discussed the PEP Requirement (politically exposed person) and the substantive judgments, on that aspect of UWOs, in Hajiyeva [2018] EWHC 2534 (Admin) and [2020] EWCA Civ 108. But there was no discussion of NCA v A (Ruling on Anonymity) (\u00a76 above), which judgment was not even cited (see [2020] 1 WLR 2145 at 2145H-2156C). (4) The Court in Hussain was being asked by the NCA to disfavour the lesser derogation of using anonymisation and reporting restrictions, on the basis (see \u00a787) that reporting restrictions would be insufficient, including as to the potential impact on Mr Hussain from \u201cany publicity\u201d. The Court agreed that reporting restrictions \u201cwould be insufficient\u201d (at \u00a790). (5) The Court in Hussain referred to two different \u201cstarting points\u201d (see \u00a7\u00a773, 88). First, there was a description of the CPR 39.2(1) \u201cgeneral rule\u201d that a hearing be open and in public (\u00a772), so that \u201copen justice is \u2026 the starting point and the default position\u201d (\u00a773). Second, there was the description of the \u201cpresumptive starting point\u201d of a hearing of a UWO application without notice and in private (\u00a788). (6) The Court in Hussain was persuaded that no balancing exercise was needed. The NCA addressed \u201cwhether the court needed to undertake a balancing exercise, considering the respondent\u2019s rights under article 8 \u2026 and weighing them in the balance against the rights of \u2026 any \u2026 relevant news organisation \u2026 under article 10\u201d, arguing that \u201csuch an exercise was unnecessary in this case, given the clear application of CPR 39.2(3), which required the court to hold the hearing in private\u201d, and given \u201cother potential rights of the respondent, for example, under articles 2 and 6\u201d (see \u00a786). The Court agreed, \u201cparticularly bearing in mind that other ECHR rights of the respondent are also potentially engaged and would need to be considered, most notably, his rights under articles 2 and 6 of the ECHR\u201d (\u00a790). Guardian News 26. In re Guardian News and Media Ltd [2010] UKSC 1 [2010] 2 AC 697 was a Supreme Court judgment about anonymisation in applications to set aside asset-freezing directions imposed by the executive on grounds of suspected involvement in terrorism. It was decided in January 2010. Mohammed Jabar Ahmed, Mohammed Azmir Khan, Michael Marteen, Hani El Sayed Sabaei Youssef and Mohammed Al-Ghabra were each the subject of asset-freezing directions imposed by HM Treasury, pursuant to Article 4 of the Terrorism (United Nations Measures) Order 2006. The basis of each direction was reasonable grounds for suspecting involvement in facilitating terrorism (Art 4(2)). Each individual exercised their statutory right (in Art 5(4)) to apply to the High Court to set aside the direction. Anonymity orders were made in those proceedings. But these were successfully challenged by the press when the cases reached the Supreme Court, based on a powerful general interest in identifying the individual claimants, which outweighed their Art 8 rights. HM Treasury had changed its position on anonymity (\u00a710). The Supreme Court recognised Art 8 reputational impacts (\u00a7\u00a737-42); and the irrelevance of names to the legal issues (\u00a7\u00a767-68). But also the shortcomings for the press of disembodied reporting (\u00a7\u00a764-65); the legitimate interest in knowing identities and making connections with public domain information (\u00a7\u00a768-69); the public purpose of asset-freezing orders (\u00a773); and the public debate which some of the claimants had entered (\u00a7\u00a770-71). There was, within the judgment, an expression of judicial confidence in public perception (\u00a766): that \u201cthe law proceeds on the basis that most members of the public understand that, even when charged with an offence, you are innocent unless and until proved guilty in a court of law\u201d. Khuja 27. Khuja v Times Newspapers Ltd [2017] UKSC 49 [2019] AC 161 was a Supreme Court case about whether to restrict press reporting of matters aired in a criminal trial. It was decided in July 2017. Tariq Khuja had been named in an Oxford crown court trial of 9 men for organised child sex grooming and child prostitution, 7 of whom were convicted. What featured in the trial was that Mr Khuja had been investigated and arrested, albeit then released without charge. He brought a High Court application for an injunction to restrain the press from identifying him in their reporting of the Oxford trial. Mr Khuja\u2019s claim failed in the High Court (22.10.13), the Court of Appeal (1.8.14) and then (by a majority of 5-2) in the Supreme Court (19.7.17). The expression of judicial confidence in public perception (Guardian News at \u00a766) was not a \u201cpresumption\u201d and there was in fact a \u201creal risk\u201d of a perception of guilt (Khuja at \u00a7\u00a78, 33-34). But, in derogating from public scrutiny in the administration of justice, \u201cnecessity\u201d was the \u201ctouchstone\u201d (\u00a714). Article 8 protected reputation but Mr Khuja had \u201cno reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to proceedings in open court\u201d (\u00a734(3)). His identity had not been withheld at the trial (\u00a7\u00a734(1), 35), there was a right of the public to be informed about a significant public act of the state (\u00a734(5)), and avoiding disembodied reporting of court proceedings was a legitimate media response (\u00a7\u00a729, 34(5)). Javadov 28. Javadov was a case about the magistrates\u2019 court hearing in public an on-notice NCA application for an account freezing order (s.303Z1 of the 2002 Act). It was decided in September 2021, before ZXC was argued in the Supreme Court. But the Article 8 reasonable expectation of privacy point \u2013 recognised by the High Court and Court of Appeal in ZXC \u2013 featured in Javadov, with the citation of authority later approved by the Supreme Court in ZXC: see Javadov at \u00a7\u00a751-52 (see \u00a746 below) and ZXC at \u00a7\u00a795 and 97. Suleyman Javadov and Izzat Khanim Javadov had held bank accounts, in respect of which the NCA made applications in the magistrates\u2019 court under Part 5 chapter 3B of the 2002 Act, for account freezing orders (see \u00a7\u00a71-2, 18). The district judge had to be satisfied that there were \u201creasonable grounds for suspecting\u201d that the money was \u201crecoverable property\u201d or intended for use in unlawful conduct (see s.303Z3(2)). The Javadovs unsuccessfully claimed judicial review of the district judge\u2019s failure to sit in private. They claimed a reasonable expectation of privacy (\u00a752), emphasising the potent trilogy of the early investigative stage, low threshold of suspicion and harmful reputational impact (\u00a7\u00a751-52). Rejecting the claim for judicial review, the Divisional Court applied to on-notice account freezing order applications the ordinary rule that the court proceedings be in public and reportable (\u00a753). Reliance was placed on the Guardian News judicial confidence in public discernment (\u00a755). A parallel can be drawn between the suspicion-based account freezing order in Javadov and the \u201cgood arguable case\u201d-based property freezing order which was the end of the anonymity in Hussain (see \u00a721 above). Marandi 29. R (Marandi) v Westminster Magistrates\u2019 Court [2023] EWHC 587 (Admin) [2023] 2 Cr App R 15 (DC, 16.5.23) was a case about the magistrates\u2019 court discharging anonymity after hearing an NCA civil recovery claim under Part 5 chapter 3B of the 2002 Act, for forfeiture of assets (see \u00a71). It was decided after ZXC had been decided in the Supreme Court. To make the forfeiture order, the district judge had to be satisfied (see \u00a711) that \u00a35.6m was \u201crecoverable property\u201d (see s.304), meaning property \u201cobtained through unlawful conduct\u201d or \u201cintended to be used in unlawful conduct\u201d (s.240), where \u201cunlawful conduct\u201d means \u201cunlawful under the criminal law\u201d (s.241). Javad Marandi was a third party who featured in the forfeiture proceedings, because of his role in connection with companies said to be part of money laundering (see \u00a710). He claimed a ZXC reasonable expectation of privacy (see \u00a724). He was unsuccessful in his claim for judicial review of the decision discharging his protective anonymity. The starting point was the open justice principle, with justice administered in public and relevant individuals being named and reportable (\u00a7\u00a729, 43(1)-(2)), and with clear and cogent evidence being needed for a derogation (\u00a7\u00a716-17, 43(6), 45(4)). Marandi at \u00a743 (see \u00a742 below) summarised well settled principles of open justice. Marandi at \u00a746 said: \u201cZXC \u2026 has no bearing on the balance to be struck between privacy rights and the public interest in transparency and open justice when a person features in a public trial\u201d. 30. I pause there, to record the following. The Supreme Court\u2019s decision in ZXC featured in Marandi. It supported the recognition of an interference with Mr Marandi\u2019s Article 8 rights (see \u00a7\u00a738a, 43(4), 44(1)). But the Divisional Court said ZXC referenced an open justice horizon (at \u00a746) for \u201cpublic trial\u201d. Mr Owen KC says Marandi \u201cproceeded on the basis that ZXC was engaged but that the judge\u2019s application of the balancing exercise was faultless\u201d. Ms Overman\u2019s position (citing Marandi \u00a746) is that ZXC forms \u201cno part\u201d of the legal framework governing the assessment of derogations from open justice. But she recognises (citing Marandi at \u00a744(1)) that allegations of involvement with criminality, including within a court judgment, can constitute an interference with the individual\u2019s Article 8 rights. PART 3: THE RESPONDENT\u2019S ARGUMENT 31. I will now set out the essence, as I saw it, of Mr Owen KC\u2019s argument for maintaining anonymisation in this case: 32. In deciding how to apply the open justice principle to UWO\/IFO proceedings, the authoritative reference-point is the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in ZXC. That decision postdates Guardian News, Khuja and Javadov. It shows how the Court, exercising its inherent jurisdiction, should now determine how the open justice principle is to be applied. ZXC authoritatively establishes three things: (1) First (see \u00a717 above), the general Article 8 right to protection of privacy over the information that an individual is under criminal investigation by a state entity. This makes publication a serious interference with the individual\u2019s Article 8 rights. It makes publication a violation of Article 8 unless this serious interference is demonstrably outweighed by some compelling public interest in favour of publication. (2) Second (see \u00a718iii above), the strong public policy support for this position, derived from a wide range of compelling sources, across many years. These recognise the practical, real-world serious reputational harm likely to flow, warranting protection. (3) Third (see \u00a718iv above), the decisive rejection of the idea of judicial confidence in public discernment, as articulated at \u00a766 of Guardian News (\u00a726 above). 33. The ZXC analysis must be read across to cases where a court is itself involved in making decisions and making orders. Marandi at \u00a721 recognises the significance of ZXC. So did R (Simms-Davies) v Southwark Crown Court [2026] EWHC 337 (Admin) at \u00a751, in leaving open the question of how \u2013 in the context of deferred prosecution agreements \u2013 to balance open justice against the interests of a person suspected but not charged. True, ZXC is about the tort of MPI. But the design of that tort is deliberately infused with Article 8 and 10 rights. So is the open justice principle. This means the ZXC reasonable expectation of privacy stands as a proper, reasoned basis to depart from the principle of open justice, wherever an individual under investigation has not been charged with any crime. In the present case, Bourne J rightly recognised that when he said that this case \u201cinvolves serious allegations against the respondent, which engage her right to privacy\u201d (see \u00a79 above). It is self-evident that associating a person with money laundering is inherently likely to cause serious reputational harm (see Marandi at \u00a744(1)). 34. ZXC stands as strong vindication for the points made in Hussain (\u00a7\u00a722-24 above). The NCA\u2019s point about no justification for a UWO respondent being put forward for public trial by media at such an early stage (Hussain at \u00a784vi), accepted in Hussain (at \u00a788), now commands the strongest support of the unanimous Supreme Court. With or without Supreme Court endorsement, the NCA in Hussain was rightly urging points (see \u00a7\u00a722-24 above) \u2013 which Murray J was right to accept \u2013 which were powerful, principled and well-founded. It was cogently explaining why there is a strong presumption of privacy built into the UWO regime (\u00a779). All of the points apply with equal force to an on-notice UWO application or inter partes hearing of that application (see \u00a725(2) above). The Divisional Court in Javadov (at \u00a728) rightly noted Hussain, in the context of an intrusion into privacy. That shows that Hussain was treated in Javadov as supporting sitting \u201cin private to determine an application\u201d for an asset freezing order. 35. True, the ZXC analysis involves a horizon point for criminal proceedings: the Article 8 reasonable expectation of privacy endures until the point in the criminal process where the individual is charged with a crime (\u00a719ii above). This means that what is needed, in the particular regulatory landscape (\u00a713 above) regarding the proceeds of crime, is an equivalent rational boundary. The principled parallel is this. The Article 8 reasonable expectation of privacy applies throughout a civil recovery investigation, until the point where the enforcement authority decides to issue a Part 5 civil recovery claim (2002 Act s.243 and CRP Practice Direction section II). At that point, the open justice principle \u201ckicks in with full force\u201d and would provide a justification for the lifting of anonymity, by analogy with a decision to lay a criminal charge. There are these key points. (1) First, the Part 5 commencement of civil recovery proceedings is identifiable (see s.341(3)(a)). The purposes of civil recovery relate to \u201cproperty obtained through unlawful conduct\u201d or property \u201cintended to be used in unlawful conduct\u201d (s.240). That means \u201cunlawful under the criminal law\u201d (s.241). It constitutes \u201crecoverable property\u201d (s.304). A court must be satisfied that there is recoverable property, in order to make a recovery order (s.266(1)). (2) Second, the decision to make a civil recovery claim is a decision to put a case as to \u201cunlawful conduct\u201d for determination by a court of law. An affected individual will have the chance to defend themselves. That is a proper parallel with a \u201ctrial\u201d. (3) Third, this fits with Marandi (\u00a729 above). There, the horizon point \u2013 the principled parallel \u2013 had been passed. There were substantive proceedings akin to the bringing of a substantive civil recovery claim. The NCA had made a claim in the magistrates\u2019 court under Part 5 chapter 3B of the 2002 Act, for forfeiture of assets (\u00a71). The district judge had to be satisfied that \u00a35.6m was \u201crecoverable property\u201d (see \u00a711). That was a finding of \u201cunlawful conduct\u201d. This means Mr Marandi\u2019s position in the Part 5 civil recovery proceedings was like Mr Khuja\u2019s position in the Oxford criminal trial (\u00a727 above). It explains the reference to \u201ca public trial\u201d (Marandi at \u00a746). (4) Fourth, insofar as this principled parallel does not fit with the analysis in Javadov (\u00a728 above), that flawed analysis predated ZXC and cannot stand in light of ZXC. The Divisional Court in Javadov did not discuss the ZXC reasonable expectation of privacy, even though the Court of Appeal in ZXC had by then affirmed it. The Divisional Court in Javadov relied (at \u00a755) on the judicial confidence in public discernment (Guardian News \u00a766), which was later decisively rejected by the Supreme Court in ZXC. All of which means Javadov is unsound. So is the reasoning in DPP v Briedis [2021] EWHC 3155 (Admin) at \u00a78, a decision concerning a property freezing order (s.245A), which followed Javadov. 36. A protective approach must apply where court powers are statutorily interwoven into criminal investigation by a state entity. Forfeiture orders (see Marandi) are substantive coercive powers of the state. So are freezing orders (see Javadov, Guardian News and Briedis). But orders which relate only to investigative steps (Part 8 of the 2002 Act) are very different. They occupy a special place on the regulatory landscape (\u00a713 above). The public policy insights in ZXC must apply to them with full force. That is for these key reasons: (1) First, Parliament has been careful and clear in identifying those applications to courts and orders made by courts which are within \u201cinvestigations\u201d (Part 8). (2) Second, where it is interwoven into the criminal investigation of an individual by a state entity, the court is being placed squarely into the very area where the strong themes apply (see \u00a718iv above). (3) Third, this is why anecdotal experience shows that courts exercise powers privately, when they are interwoven with criminal investigations. Statistics are not available, and the NCA has declined to provide any. (4) Fourth, the essence of all of this is found in the potent trilogy of points endorsed in Hussain (see \u00a722 above), and in the raft of other powerful points being made by the NCA itself in that case (see \u00a7\u00a723-24 above). It is also reflected in the CRP Practice Direction (see \u00a716 above). (5) Fifth, the policy rationale for interweaving courts into criminal investigations is protective. These are judicial safeguards. They are intended to protect the individual under investigation. It would seriously undermine that policy rationale if a safeguarding interweaving of courts exposed the individual to the peril of damaging publicity. That would be a wholly undesirable, counterproductive consequence. The very opposite of a safeguarding protection. (6) Sixth, unless a strong and principled line is drawn, invidious dilemmas are introduced and chilling consequences follow. An individual on the receiving end of a UWO has legal rights or access to justice and effective protection of the law. They are entitled to apply for criteria to be applied afresh, and issues of insufficiency of inquiry or material non-disclosure ventilated, prior to having to comply. They will stand disarmed and deterred, if the price of effective judicial protection is exposure in the public domain. 37. The application to UWO proceedings of the open justice principle, and the balancing exercise which arises, does call for a fact-specific evaluation. There can be circumstances justifying discharging anonymity. The property freezing order against Mr Hussain (\u00a721 above) was part of Part 5 civil recovery. NCA v A (Ruling on Anonymity) (\u00a76 above) involved a PEP (politically exposed person), which does not mean \u201cbeing involved in criminal activity\u201d. Schools (\u00a77 above) was a case where the husband had been tried and convicted, and the wife was not a criminal suspect. 38. The circumstances of the present case strongly support the maintenance of the orders for anonymity and reporting restrictions. There is no compelling public interest justification to displace the reasonable expectation of privacy starting point. There is no cogent countervailing justification. The orders for interim anonymity and reporting restrictions were rightly made because they were necessary. They remain necessary. The key points are these. (1) The Respondent is a 24 year old student. She is a person of good character. She has no role in public life. (2) The civil recovery investigation is at a very early stage. It is about information gathering only. The Respondent is not even at the point of having to answer questions about her assets. (3) The NCA has described confidential details about the Respondent\u2019s finances. (4) The NCA has described suspicions based both on the conduct of the Respondent\u2019s uncle and parents, but also the Respondent\u2019s own conduct. Part of the NCA\u2019s case is that there are reasonable grounds for suspecting that her own conduct itself constitutes the serious crime of money laundering (Judgment No.1 at \u00a731v). (5) It would be highly damaging \u2013 indeed catastrophic \u2013 for the fact of the investigation to be disclosed and published. The Respondent has career aspirations which she has described in a witness statement, which include the ambition of working in the banking sector. Her reputation and career prospects would be devastated by being named in the context of these proceedings (6) It would be extremely unfair for the seriously damaging consequences to arise, out of what is supposed to be \u2013 for her \u2013 a judicial safeguarding. The Court is involved so as to protect her interests, not undermine them. (7) The anonymity order is a minimum derogation. It reconciles the legitimate interests. The media are able fully to understand the issues in the case, the nature of the orders made, and the basis on which they have been made and upheld. There is no distinct public interest in reporting the Respondent\u2019s identity. The inability to do so does not undermine in any way the ability of the press to scrutinise the judicial process for UWOs\/IFOs, to be aware of the invocation of the statutory powers and the utilisation of this type of order. (8) The ability to make reporting more vivid by including names and personal details comes nowhere close to being a countervailing justification to outweigh the seriously damaging reputational impacts. The Respondent is in no way a public figure. There is no public interest in identifying her, and therefore identifying private financial information relating to her and her resources. (9) It is true that the Respondent\u2019s uncle has been publicly identified as convicted in Singapore of criminal offences, and her father has been named in media articles as a criminal suspect, and the reporting restrictions apply to naming them too. But that is only reporting of this case. And it is only because that is necessary to protect the Respondent. (10) In all the circumstances, the balancing exercise must come down decisively in favour of maintaining the protective position which the Court rightly identified, through the anonymity order and reporting restrictions. They should be maintained. They have been demonstrated as necessary. 39. That, as I saw it, is the essence of the Respondent\u2019s argument. I have, however, been unable to accept it. Before I turn to the balancing exercise (Part 5 below), I will analyse the position as to some key themes which have arisen out of the Respondent\u2019s argument. PART 4: KEY THEMES The uninverted starting-point 40. The first theme is a responsive point which was powerfully made by Ms Overman. She pointed to a number of submissions made and maintained by Mr Owen KC. He argues that there needs to be a \u201ccompelling public interest justification to displace the \u2018reasonable expectation of privacy\u2019 starting point\u201d. He argues that ZXC relevantly \u201cestablishes\u201d that there must be \u201csome compelling public interest in favour of publication\u201d. This, says Ms Overman, is to start in the wrong place and put things the wrong way round. The starting point is the very well-established framework where the open justice principle applies. It has its touchstone of necessity. It requires a cogent justification for derogating from open justice. I think she is right. 41. The starting point for the analysis is the constitutional principle of open justice. Murray J was right first time (see \u00a725(5) above) when he said in Hussain (at \u00a773): \u201cOpen justice is \u2026 the starting point\u201d. In a case where the open justice principle applies, ZXC does not invert that starting point. ZXC was not a case about the open justice principle. Indeed, the ZXC horizon, for the reasonable expectation of privacy and media organisations reporting criminal investigations, arrives because it encounters \u201cthe open justice principle \u2026 fundamental to securing public confidence in the administration of justice\u201d (ZXC at \u00a777). This echoes the observation which applied to Mr Khuja \u2013 a person who was investigated but never charged \u2013 that \u201cthere is no reasonable expectation of privacy in relation to proceedings in open court\u201d: Khuja at \u00a734(3). ZXC was not rewriting the open justice principle. It was agreeing with a long line of cases going back to 2014-2016 (see ZXC at \u00a7\u00a791-94). It was not inverting the starting point, in a case where the open justice principle applies. That does not mean the reasoning in ZXC loses all force, just because open justice has come into play. But it does mean the reasoning in ZXC must fit into the open justice analysis with care. And it does mean putting things the right way round, when the open justice principle is engaged, and not inverting them. 42. I think the importance of putting things the right way round is illustrated by Marandi. There, the Divisional Court discussed the Supreme Court\u2019s decision in ZXC. Warby LJ described ZXC as a case about the Convention analysis \u201cin cases where no legal proceedings have begun\u201d, having \u201cno bearing on the balance to be struck\u201d (\u00a746). He treated ZXC as relevant to the question of Article 8 interference (see \u00a7\u00a721, 38a, 43(4)). But, importantly, there was no ZXC-based inversion of the familiar framework where the open justice principle was applicable. That uninverted framework, which he said had been rightly recognised by the district judge in Marandi, had the following features which began with \u201cthe starting point\u201d (Marandi at \u00a743): (1) The starting point is the common law principle of open justice, authoritatively expounded in Scott v Scott and subsequent authorities at the highest level. The judge was right to begin here\u2026 (2) The general principles [are] that (a) justice is administered in public and (b) everything said in court is reportable both encompass the mention of names. As a rule, \u201c[t]he public has a right to know, not only what is going on in our courts, but also who the principal actors are\u201d: R (C) v Secretary of State for Justice [2016] UKSC 2 [2016] 1 WLR 444 at \u00a736 (Baroness Hale)\u2026 (3) When considering the application for derogation in this case the judge was right to identify and apply a test of necessity. Under the common law as it existed prior to the entry into force of the Human Rights Act 1998, anonymity could only be justified where this was strictly necessary \u201cin the interests of justice\u201d: see Khuja \u00a714\u2026 The claimant's case rests on the common law privacy right derived from Article 8, to which the Supreme Court referred in Khuja. But in that context too the applicant for anonymity has to show that this is necessary in pursuit of the legitimate aim on which he relies. (4) The threshold question is whether the measure in question \u2013 here, allowing the disclosure of the claimant's name and consequent publicity \u2013 would amount to an interference with the claimant's right to respect for his private and family life. This requires proof that the effects would attain a \u201ccertain level of seriousness\u201d: ZXC (SC) \u00a755, Javadov \u00a739. It was the very essence of the claimant's case \u2013 as to which the judge was in no doubt \u2013 that the reputational impact of disclosure would amount to a very serious interference with his Convention rights. In my view it is clear that the judge accepted throughout that the threshold test was satisfied. His reasoning cannot be understood in any other way. (5) The next stage is the balancing exercise. Both the judge's decisions expressly turned on whether it was \u201cnecessary and proportionate\u201d to grant anonymity. That language clearly reflects a Convention analysis and the balancing process which the judge was required to undertake. The question implicit in the judge's reasoning process is whether the consequences of disclosure would be so serious an interference with the claimant\u2019s rights that it was necessary and proportionate to interfere with the ordinary rule of open justice. It is clear enough, in my view, that he was engaging in a process of evaluating the claimant's case against the weighty imperatives of open justice. (6) It is in that context that the judge rightly addressed the question of whether the claimant had adduced \u201cclear and cogent evidence\u201d. He was considering whether it had been shown that the balance fell in favour of anonymity. The cases all show that this question is not to be answered on the basis of \u201crival generalities\u201d but instead by a close examination of the weight to be given to the specific rights that are at stake on the facts of the case. That is why \u201cclear and cogent evidence\u201d is needed. This requirement reflects both the older common law authorities and the more modern cases. In Scott v Scott [1913] AC 417 at 438 Viscount Haldane held that the court had no power to depart from open justice \u201cunless it be strictly necessary\u201d; the applicant \u201cmust make out his case strictly, and bring it up to the standard which the underlying principle requires\u201d. R (Rai) v Winchester Crown Court [2021] EWCA Civ 604 [2021] 2 Cr App R 20 (CA) is authority that the same is true of a case that relies on Article 8\u2026 (7) \u2026 the closing passage of the judgment under review reflects the conclusion arrived at by the judge after conducting the necessary balancing process. This was that, in the light of all the facts and circumstances that were apparent to him at that time, the derogation from open justice that anonymity would represent was no longer shown to be justified as both necessary for the protection of the claimant\u2019s Article 8 rights and proportionate to that aim. 43. Another example of the uninverted starting-point is Simms-Davies. In that case, the judge in the crown court decided to lift anonymity in a judgment approving deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs), pursuant to Sch 17 \u00a78 to the Crime and Courts Act 2013. Robb Simms-Davies was a director of the company which entered into the DPA with the SFO. He was tried in the crown court on bribery charges and acquitted. When the judge decided to lift the anonymity, Mr Simms-Davies unsuccessfully claimed judicial review of that decision. He accepted that the judge\u2019s decision was unimpeachable, if her approach was right (\u00a736). But, he said, her approach was wrong. There was, he said, no need to \u201cestablish that it was necessary to derogate from the principle of open justice in order to safeguard his rights\u201d (\u00a734). Instead, relying on the Supreme Court in ZXC, he said (at \u00a739): that the \u201cstarting point was not open justice\u201d; that \u201cit was not for the individual to demonstrate that continued anonymisation was necessary to protect the interests of the individual and that outweighed the interest in open justice\u201d; and that \u201cthe test was whether it was necessary to name the individual\u201d. The Divisional Court disagreed. The crown court\u2019s function of approving a DPA was \u201ca judicial process\u201d and \u201cpart of the system of the administration of justice, so that the \u201cconcept of open justice applies\u201d (\u00a7\u00a741, 45). That meant the question was whether it was \u201cnecessary to depart from the principle of open justice\u201d (\u00a745). The attempted inversion failed. 44. Linked to this topic about an uninverted starting-point, Ms Overman submits \u2013 based on Lawrence v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2025] EWHC 3237 (KB) at \u00a7\u00a722a-b \u2013 that: (a) the balancing of competing rights (Marandi at \u00a743(5)) follows a structured approach which considers whether there is an interference prescribed by the law, whether it pursues a legitimate aim, and whether it is necessary in a democratic society; and (b) the scales in this balancing exercise do not start evenly balanced, but rather \u201cthe balance starts with a very clear presumption in favour of open justice unless and until that is displaced and outweighed by a sufficiently countervailing justification\u201d. I accept that submission. The insights in ZXC illuminate the question of whether there is an Article 8 interference, and as to the seriousness of that interference. But the Article 8 interference and its impact and implications still need, in the end, to be a cogent justification for a necessary derogation. The civil recovery claim horizon 45. The next theme is Mr Owen KC\u2019s argument (see \u00a735 above) that there is a principled parallel between the horizon described in ZXC (see \u00a719ii above) and the point at which a civil recovery investigation becomes civil recovery proceedings. I accept that this is a discernible point within the statutory scheme (see the 2002 Act ss.243, 341(3)(a)). I accept that Part 8 (investigations) are a distinct part of the regulatory landscape (see \u00a713 above and Javadov at \u00a7\u00a714d, 18). I accept that where the High Court is concerned with the \u201cinformation-gathering tool\u201d of a UWO, during the \u201cvery early stages\u201d of an investigation (Hussain \u00a784ii), an interference with the individual\u2019s Article 8 rights is likely to be the clearer, the more serious and the weightier. I accept that having crossed, or not crossed, the line to civil recovery action would be a relevant feature in the balancing exercise. But I am unable to accept that there is a direct parallel between the ZXC charging-point to the civil recovery claim point. 46. The ZXC horizon point \u2013 at which an investigated individual is charged with a criminal offence \u2013 was a \u201cboundary\u201d at which, in general, \u201cthere can be no reasonable expectation of privacy\u201d, because \u201cthe open justice principle is fundamental to securing public confidence in the administration of justice\u201d (ZXC at \u00a777: \u00a719ii above). Marandi illustrates that an NCA claim for forfeiture of assets is a context where the open justice principle is fundamental to securing public confidence in the administration of justice (see \u00a7\u00a71, 11 and 43). But Javadov powerfully illustrates that an on-notice NCA application for account freezing orders (AFOs), made at \u201can early investigative stage\u201d and on the basis of \u201creasonable grounds for suspicion\u201d, also constitutes proceedings where the open justice principle is fundamental to securing public confidence in the administration of justice. And Javadov took that approach, notwithstanding the pre-charge reasonable expectation of privacy, already found within the very line of authorities subsequently approved by the Supreme Court in ZXC. Here is what Fulford LJ said about on-notice applications for AFOs, in Javadov at \u00a7\u00a751-53: 51\u2026 [The Claimant\u2019s Counsel] emphasised that the grant of an AFO will occur at an early investigative stage, which may well be before any substantive allegation has crystalised. It is suggested that the threshold for granting an AFO is low (reasonable grounds for suspicion: section 303Z3). The claimants rely on Richard v BBC [2018] EWHC 1837 (Ch) [2019] Ch 169 as authority for the proposition that in general there is no need for anyone outside an investigating force to know of an investigation. In this regard, [Counsel] contends that AFOs are an investigative tool and a \u201cholding process\u201d, and given the allegations are likely to \u201cstick\u201d, the hearings should, if requested, be in private. It is argued that the open justice principle is not engaged merely because there is a court hearing, given many kinds of without notice hearings are heard in private. 52. In a similar vein [Counsel] relied on Sicri v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2020] EWHC 3541 (QB) [2021] 4 WLR 9 as a basis for the proposition that an individual has a reasonable expectation of privacy in respect of information that they had come under suspicion by the state, given the disclosure of such information was likely to have a seriously harmful impact on the persons reputation and thus their private life. 53. Contrary to [Counsel]\u2019s erudite submissions, and particularly the suggestion that the presumptive starting point is that applications of this kind should be held in private, the ordinary rule is that court proceedings take place in public, a rule which can only be displaced in unusual or exceptional circumstances. In this regard there is a significant distinction to be drawn between court proceedings and an investigation such as in the Richard case. As Warby J in Sicri observed at \u00a7103, court proceedings are, as a rule, open to the public and reportable since \u201cthe court is exercising the judicial power of the state, determining rights and obligations; its workings need to be transparent and open to scrutiny and criticism\u201d\u2026 47. Richard and Sicri \u2013 discussed in Javadov at \u00a7\u00a751-52 \u2013 were pre-charge investigation \u201creasonable expectation of privacy\u201d cases in the line of authority which the Supreme Court was endorsing in ZXC (see \u00a7\u00a795, 97). I can find no traction in Mr Owen KC\u2019s criticism of Javadov as involving \u201cno argument about the engagement of the ZXC principle\u201d even though by then the Court of Appeal in ZXC had endorsed it. It was not new. It featured explicitly in Javadov, as the Sicri point (\u00a752), within Counsel\u2019s erudite submissions (\u00a753). Conversely, I can see nothing in the judgment of the Supreme Court in ZXC whose logic would undermine the recognition in the proceedings in Javadov, about the open justice principle being fundamental in that case to securing public confidence in the administration of justice. Nor did the Divisional Court in Marandi discern any post-ZXC difficulty with Javadov. Marandi (see \u00a743(4)) illustrates the continued relevance of ZXC alongside Javadov, on the question of Article 8 interference, notwithstanding that a civil recovery claim has been made. Hussain revisited 48. The next theme is Mr Owen KC\u2019s reliance (see \u00a734 above) on the reasoning and conclusions of Murray J in Hussain, agreeing with submissions which Mr Sutcliffe KC made in that case (\u00a7\u00a788, 92), in particular: that although the facts and circumstances of each case need careful consideration, \u201cthe presumptive starting point\u201d is that a UWO application \u201cwill be in private\u201d (\u00a7\u00a783, 88); that this is \u201cparticularly\u201d so where the Court is considering the Serious Crime Requirement (\u00a788); that this is underpinned by the potent trilogy of points (see \u00a722 above), being (i) the very early stage of an investigation (\u00a7\u00a784ii, 88i), (ii) the relatively low threshold (\u00a7\u00a784i, 88ii), and (iii) the potentially disproportionate personal and reputational impact on the individual (\u00a7\u00a784v, 88iii); that the media interest in UWOs is \u201cundeserved\u201d, since they are merely a tool to assist with information-gathering during early preliminary stages of an investigation (\u00a7\u00a784i-84ii); that a UWO offers a chance for a satisfactory explanation of wealth and maintenance of good character (\u00a791iv); that the UWO application sets out detailed information about the individual\u2019s finances (\u00a7\u00a784iv, 91iii); that publicity could drive the NCA to distort the threshold (\u00a784vi); that the statutory scheme (\u00a7\u00a776-77) indicates a strong presumption of privacy is \u201cbuilt-in\u201d (\u00a7\u00a779, 85); that multiple limbs of CPR 39.2(3) are applicable (\u00a7\u00a774, 85, 88); that anonymity and reporting restrictions would not suffice (\u00a787); that the \u201cpresumption of privacy\u201d specifically concerns \u201cthe need for privacy\u201d and \u201cthus applies equally to applications made on notice\u201d (\u00a782). 49. In my judgment, the position is as follows. I accept that Hussain gathers together a series of valuable considerations for a judge to take into account when deciding whether to discharge orders for anonymity and reporting restrictions after a full inter partes hearing of an application to discharge a UWO and IFO. I accept that these are features which can inform the ultimate balancing exercise, when the open justice principle is applied. I do not accept that Hussain is authority for a presumption in favour of anonymisation, applicable to contested inter partes hearings in UWO\/IFO cases. Here are my reasons: 50. First, Hussain was a case about a without-notice application for an UWO and IFO. It was the same situation as was encountered in the present proceedings on 18 July 2025, when the application was made to Bourne J. It is right that the NCA was making points about \u201capplications made on notice\u201d (\u00a782) and Murray J \u201csubstantially\u201d agreed with all \u201cthese submissions\u201d (\u00a788). But the application of the multiple limbs of CPR 39.2(3) (see \u00a7\u00a774, 85, 88-89) \u2013 namely 39.2(3)(a), (c), (e) and (g) \u2013 could only be because it was a without-notice case. The reliance on CPR 39.2(3)(a) (publicity would defeat the object of the hearing) was about avoiding notice to Mr Hussain leading to information and documentation being moved (\u00a7\u00a781, 83i, 91i). The reliance on CPR 39.2(3)(e) (injustice where application not on notice) was necessarily about the fact that Mr Hussain was not being heard (\u00a7\u00a783ii, 84v, 91ii). The \u201cstarting point\u201d of a hearing in private matched the CRP Practice Direction \u00a711.1 (\u00a777), for an application for a UWO\/IFO (see too Schools at \u00a77). Murray J was talking about the start of the UWO\/IFO proceedings, when he spoke of the various limbs of CPR 39.2(3) which were \u201clikely to be engaged\u201d (Hussain at \u00a788). His key finding was this (\u00a788): the presumptive starting point is that a UWO application will be made without notice and that the hearing of the UWO application and any related IFO application will be in private. This expressly linked an application \u201cmade without notice\u201d to a \u201chearing \u2026 in private\u201d. Murray J said \u201cany related IFO application\u201d, meaning an IFO sought in the application \u201cmade without notice\u201d and \u201cin private\u201d. He did not say \u201cany related hearing\u201d. I do not think his general substantial agreement with the wide ranging submissions (\u00a788) was an endorsement of the specific submission that \u201cthe presumption of privacy \u2026 applies equally to applications made on notice\u201d (\u00a782). 51. Second, this reflects the treatment of Hussain found in Javadov. That was the case (see \u00a728 above) about whether the magistrates were wrong to hear on-notice applications for account freezing orders (AFOs) in public. In a section of the judgment in Javadov specifically discussing \u201cwithout notice\u201d applications (\u00a7\u00a725-34), the Court cited Hussain as being a case \u201cof note\u201d (Javadov at \u00a727). I think Mr Owen KC is trying to get more from that reliance than is present. The Divisional Court was careful to distinguish applications made on-notice (Javadov at \u00a7\u00a735, 51). Within its discussion, in that on-notice context, of the Article 8\/10 balancing exercise (\u00a7\u00a735-55), the Court did not include any discussion or endorsement of Hussain. Instead, the Court discussed (see \u00a7\u00a746-48) the approach of Supperstone J in NCA v A (Ruling on Anonymity) (\u00a76 above). That was the case in which the inter partes application to discharge the UWO\/IFO was in public, and orders for anonymity and reporting restrictions were discharged. 52. Third, the position can be tested by reference to the hearing being in private, and the Article 8\/10 balancing exercise. Hussain favoured a hearing in private (\u00a7\u00a788-89), which is matched by Javadov (at \u00a7\u00a726, 35), so far as a without-notice application is concerned. But Mr Owen KC recognised that he could not support this approach \u2013 the hearing being in private \u2013 for the application to set aside the UWO\/IFO. Hussain also suggested the Article 8\/10 balancing had not been reached (at \u00a7\u00a786, 90), which also has an echo in Javadov (at \u00a735), again so far as a without-notice application is concerned. But, again, Mr Owen KC recognised that he could not support this approach \u2013 the Art 8\/10 balancing not being reached \u2013 for the application to set aside the UWO\/IFO being in private. These points reinforce the limitations of Hussain as a governing framework on inter partes hearings relating to UWOs\/IFOs. 53. Fourth, all of this fits with NCA v Hao [2024] EWHC 2240 (Admin) (Murray J, 2.5.24). In that case, a 2002 Act Part 8 (investigation) application for a disclosure order (s.357) had been made without notice, and granted, at a private hearing (Hao at \u00a7\u00a79, 14, 17, 42i). That is consistent with Hussain, as discussed in Javadov. Jiangbao Hao and Wenjun Tian then applied to set aside the disclosure order. One aspect only warranted hearing in private (\u00a79). Otherwise, the inter partes application was heard in public (by Murray J, who had decided Hussain), and there were no anonymity or reporting restrictions. Courts interwoven into state investigation 54. The next theme I address is what Mr Owen KC says (\u00a736 above) about courts being statutorily interwoven into criminal investigations by state entities, with a safeguarding rationale, which should not be undermined by visiting investigated individuals with serious harm. This is how I see the position, based on the submissions which have been made and the materials marshalled. 55. First, I think Mr Owen KC has made powerful and relevant points about why courts are given functions linked to criminal investigations, and about the implications of exposing affected individuals to harm. I think these call for caution and circumspection. They are relevant, in my judgment, within the ultimate balancing exercise. 56. Second, I have been unable to accept that Mr Owen KC has substantiated his claims about routinely private proceedings \u2013 week in week out \u2013 where courts are interwoven with investigations. I was struck by this submission. It was given particular emphasis in Mr Owen KC\u2019s oral reply. He told me he was making the point \u201canecdotally\u201d and based on experience. I decided to invite the Respondent\u2019s representatives to provide any materials which supported the description. The further submissions which were filed focused on Part 8 of the 2002 Act, reminded me of the regulatory landscape and Javadov, repeated the point about anecdotal experience, indicated that respondents may have been named in 6 out of up to 16 UWO cases, and told me that the NCA had declined an invitation to provide statistics. I would have been very interested in any commentary or case-law which described a practice involving a conscious recognition of a need for courts to act in private (or using anonymisation), when making orders which are interwoven into state criminal investigation. No such sources were forthcoming. If this picture can be shown, I was not shown it. I am left with the materials and case-law which was provided. Javadov is not a case which supports the contention made. In that case the judicial interweaving was in making account freezing orders. Those orders \u201coccur at an early investigative stage\u201d, as \u201can investigative tool\u201d (\u00a751). But they mean there are \u201ccourt proceedings\u201d, with \u201cthe judicial power of the state\u201d (\u00a753). Open justice applied. The hearing was in public. The Javadovs were named. Nor does NCA v Hao support the contention made. Ms Hao and Mr Tian had the safeguard of the High Court needing to be satisfied of the reasonable grounds for suspicion (s.358) to justify the disclosure order. Ms Hao and Mr Tian also had the right of effective judicial protection by applying to discharge the disclosure order, with the statutory criteria applied afresh (\u00a755). But the open justice principle applied and they were named. That was a Part 8 (investigation) case. Nor does a case like R (Virdee) v NCA [2018] EWHC 1119 (Admin) [2018] 1 WLR 5073. That case is about the lawfulness of searches and seizures of the premises of those under criminal investigation, and the lawfulness of production orders issued by crown court judges to financial institutions. There, judicial review was the safeguarding route for access to the court. But the claimants were not anonymised. I add this. Guardian News comes from a very different context. But it too involved the safeguarding protection of access to the Court, to challenge the lawfulness of a suspicion-based measure, where anonymisation was discharged in the interests of open justice. Judicial confidence in public discernment 57. A final theme to address is what Mr Owen KC says (see \u00a7\u00a732(3) and 35(4) above) about the Supreme Court in ZXC decisively rejecting the idea of placing reliance on the public being expected to understand the distinction between suspicion of criminal wrongdoing and guilt. This was an idea relied on in Guardian News at \u00a7\u00a760, 66 (see \u00a726 above), when discharging anonymisation in legal challenges to suspicion-based asset freezing directions. It was revisited by the split Court in Khuja at \u00a7\u00a78, 33-34 (with majority observations about there being no legal presumption; that it is a question of fact not law; and that there is a real risk of harm); and at \u00a7\u00a756, 58 (with minority observations that Guardian News at \u00a766 was a baseless presumption; and that there is a clear risk of profound reputational harm). Then came ZXC at \u00a7\u00a7107-109 (there is no presumption; there is a clear answer; there is likely to be harm, including reputational harm, which may be profound and irremediable). See \u00a718iv above. 58. In Javadov (\u00a728 above), the district judge had granted on-notice applications for account freezing orders, based on reasonable grounds for suspicion. That was lawfully done at a public hearing, with no anonymity or reporting restrictions. Part of the analysis of the Divisional Court was the assessment (at \u00a755) that: \u201cThe public can be expected to understand that simply because an individual has been made the subject of an order of this kind, that does not justify reaching sinister conclusions about him or her\u201d. I followed that approach in DPP v Briedis at \u00a78. I agree with Mr Owen KC that it is appropriate to revisit these observations in the light of what was said by the Supreme Court in ZXC. In my judgment, the position is this: 59. First, the reasoning of the Supreme Court in ZXC resoundingly tells us that it is necessary for a Court to confront the real-world implications of allowing the press to name an individual who is under criminal investigation. It also shows us that there is \u201conly one answer\u201d (see \u00a7108): a person\u2019s reputation will ordinarily be adversely affected causing prejudice to personal enjoyment of the right to respect for private life such as the right to establish and develop relationships with other human beings. The harm can be profound and may be irremediable (see \u00a7109). None of this can properly be characterised as an overstatement, in light of the \u201cpublic\u2019s ability and propensity to observe the presumption of innocence\u201d (ZXC at \u00a7108). A Court should consider the adverse effect on the individual, as a question of fact in each case (ZXC at \u00a7107). 60. Second, in approaching this case-specific factual assessment, depending on the facts and circumstances of the case, there can be room for the assessment that: (a) an informed understanding can serve to mitigate or counterbalance the real-world harm for the reputation of the individual; (b) especially where the Court is in a position to promote an informed understanding, by promulgating a clear judgment in the public domain. This includes where a suspicion-based measure is imposed in \u201ccourt proceedings\u201d, to which the open justice principle applies, when \u201cexercising the judicial power of the state\u201d (Javadov at \u00a753). I add this. In ZXC, there was no judicial act in court proceedings, unlike Javadov and Briedis. The Supreme Court was identifying the civil law obligation applicable to a media organisation when publishing the fact that an individual is under police investigation. There are other illustrations of why it can matter that the Court is in a position to promote an informed understanding, by promulgating a clear judgment in the public domain. Take NCA v A (Ruling on Anonymity), where Supperstone J approached open justice on this basis: \u201cAs I have made clear in my judgment, the requirements relating to PEPs are of a preventive and not criminal nature, and should not be interpreted as stigmatising PEPs as being involved in criminal activity\u201d. Take Schools, where Pepperall J approached the open justice principle on the basis that Mr Schools had been convicted of fraud and (see \u00a710) that the SFO was not alleging \u201cthat Ms Schools was herself involved in her former husband\u2019s criminal activity\u201d. Mr Owen KC emphasises these features of these cases. But they are seen from what the Court spelled out in its judgment. 61. Third, it is helpful for the Court to encapsulate the following objectively true features of the present case. (1) The Respondent is an overseas student here who is said to have acquired a \u00a34m flat in 2021 aged 19, and a \u00a31.173m flat aged 21. She is also said to have \u00a3799.3k in 6 bank accounts. (2) She and these assets have come within a civil recovery investigation by the NCA, with a view to finding out whether or not they are recoverable as property obtained through unlawful conduct, here or overseas. (3) The NCA has rightly acknowledged the possibility that there were benign sources of wealth behind the assets, wholly independent of any potential shadow of money laundering. (4) As reported in BBC News and the Straits Times in 2024, a criminal investigation in Singapore has seen ten people prosecuted and convicted (with $944m in assets forfeited) and fifteen others pursued and dealt with (surrendering $1.85bn in assets). The Respondent\u2019s uncle is identified as one of ten convicted. So is a business associate of the Respondent\u2019s father. The Respondent\u2019s father is identified as one of the fifteen dealt with. (5) The NCA suspects that the uncle and the father have been involved in money laundering, or that the father has been involved in facilitating the uncle\u2019s money laundering, or that the Respondent has facilitated the uncle or father\u2019s money laundering, or that the Respondent\u2019s assets are criminal property, derived from the criminal activities of the uncle or father. (6) Based on those as reasonable grounds for suspicion, the Respondent has been made the subject of a UWO and associated IFO by the High Court. The UWO is an information-gathering order which requires her to provide information in a statement about specified property and how she obtained it. The Respondent has unsuccessfully challenged the UWO. 62. Fourth, it is appropriate to make findings. My findings are as follows: i) The encapsulation (\u00a761 above) was objectively clear from Judgment No.1 and has been emphasised here in Judgment No.2. That is a judicial act in the public domain, which serves to promote an informed understanding. Responsible media reporting of the court proceedings in the present case would include the essence of the encapsulation. Objective and fair readers of that reporting would not equate the making of the UWO\/IFO with the Respondent being guilty of a criminal offence. ii) The Court is not in a position to control reporting or secondary use of information. Not every writer will report responsibly. Not every reader will be objective and fair. There are clear risks that media and other reporting of the court proceedings will occur in a way which is not responsible; and that information derived from discharging anonymisation will be communicated and heard in ways which are not objective, balanced and fair. It is likely that a significant number of readers and writers of information about or from these proceedings would take an unfair adverse view of the Respondent\u2019s conduct or knowledge. This is likely to cause unfair harm to the Respondent\u2019s character and reputation, from which continued anonymisation would protect her. iii) A responsible future employer of the Respondent \u2013 and especially a bank or financial institution \u2013 is highly likely to be interested in the objective truth of what has happened, and what happens next. They are highly likely to seek an objective, fair and informed understanding. This would be assisted by the Court\u2019s clear judgments in the public domain, by responsible reporting, and by what the Respondent is able to show happened next when she responded to the UWO. PART 5: BALANCING EXERCISE 63. I now turn to conduct the case-specific evaluative exercise which the law requires of me. My analysis, in conducting that balancing exercise, is as follows. I start with the common law principle of open justice. I am conscious that my decision in this case is part of the administration of justice. The orders which I have maintained are an exercise of the judicial power of the state. I remember that the general principles of open justice are that justice is administered in public and that everything said in court is reportable; that the public has the right to know, and the press has a right to report, what is going on in court, and who the principal actors are. I remind myself that derogation from open justice can be justified; that the test and touchstone is necessity; and that it is for the Respondent to show that the derogation is necessary. 64. Next, I turn to the basis for the derogation from open justice. It is the common law privacy right derived from Article 8. I remember that the Court has the responsibility of deciding whether or not to allow the unanonymised reporting of these UWO\/IFO proceedings. I ask myself what are the key features which weigh in support of the derogation, and what is my evaluation of those features. This is what emerges: 65. First, I accept that to allow unanonymised reporting would, seriously and significantly, interfere with the Respondent\u2019s Article 8 right to respect for her private life. I do not downplay this. The Respondent is a young adult. She is here as a student. She is a person of good character. She has her life, including her working life and career, ahead of her. She has told me in witness statement evidence that she is still a student here, that she has career aspirations to employment in the financial sector, perhaps by a bank, and that she fears the implications of reporting of this case in which she is identified. The Court would be allowing her to be identified as a person who and whose assets are the subject of a criminal investigation, by the NCA, in the context of money laundering. There is a clear risk of damage and harm. Viewed in terms of her inner circle, her associates and the general public, the Respondent\u2019s reputation is likely to be adversely affected by the likely reaction to the publication of information that she is a person under investigation, causing prejudice to her enjoyment of the right to establish and develop relationships with others. I recall, and incorporate, the findings which I have made (\u00a762 above). I evaluate the interference as serious and significant. It weighs heavily in the balance. The discussion and reasoning in ZXC strongly inform the identification of all of this, and my evaluation of it. 66. Second, I take full account of the fact that the derogation which is sought is limited to the identification of the Respondent and the reporting of information which would allow her to be identified. The fact of these UWO\/IFO proceedings can be reported. As is seen in the contents of Judgment No.1, there can be informed reporting of the nature of the NCA\u2019s application and underlying investigation, the issues, the nature of the arguments, and the Court\u2019s reasoning. These are at the heart of the administration of justice, and the exercise of the judicial power of the state, in making and maintaining the UWO\/IFO. 67. Third, I take full account of the investigative nature of UWO\/IFO proceedings. They are proceedings directly related to \u2013 interwoven into \u2013 state powers of criminal investigation. The Court\u2019s powers are within Part 8 of the 2002 Act \u2013 headed \u201cinvestigation\u201d \u2013 because they are concerned with civil recovery investigation. A UWO\/IFO is part of early stage information gathering. The threshold is low: reasonable grounds for suspicion. The questions at issue necessarily arise prior to the question of whether the Respondent should be being required to provide information at all, as to her wealth and how she came to acquire it. It is in response to the UWO \u2013 if it is made and not discharged \u2013 that the Respondent would then have the chance satisfactorily to explain her wealth. That stage has not yet been reached. 68. Fourth, I also take full account of the safeguarding nature of the High Court\u2019s role, in the context of the Part 8 investigation, when dealing with the UWO\/IFO proceedings. The Court is given a safeguarding function, as protection for the individual being investigated. The safeguard involves the High Court giving an independent judicial application of statutory criteria, before allowing the intrusive step of requiring an individual to provide information about their wealth and how they came to acquire their wealth. In contesting a UWO\/IFO, and in applying to set aside an UWO\/IFO, the Respondent is exercising her rights to effective judicial protection, by access to the court, in a manner intended by Parliament. She is doing so in relation to a safeguarding function at an investigative stage. Unanonymised reporting, exposing in the public domain the fact of being under a criminal investigation, risks undermining of the safeguarding rationale of the High Court\u2019s statutory function. It risks having a chilling effect as to the exercise of the right of effective judicial protection by access to the court. 69. These are powerful features. They weigh heavily, in favour of anonymisation as a limited derogation from open justice. They weigh individually and cumulatively. But they are not sufficient, in my judgment, to demonstrate a necessity for this derogation from open justice. In my judgment, the balance comes down decisively in favour of non-anonymisation; and the Article 8 interference is justified as necessary and proportionate. I ask myself what are the key features which weigh against the derogation, and what is my evaluation of those features. This is what emerges: 70. First, there is a clear public interest in the Court publishing a full report of the judgment. That is to promote the public fully understanding the basis for the application for an UWO\/IFO and the basis on which the High Court has made the orders in this case (see NCA v A (Ruling on Anonymity): \u00a76 above). It enables media reporting of the case being vivid and embodied, not dehumanised and disembodied. That affords respect for editorial latitude in how a responsible media most effectively reaches an audience. But it also entails the Court promoting the widest and most effective scrutiny of the judicial process. I agree with Ms Overman\u2019s submission that the orders in this case lead to austere, abstract reporting. I accept how Mr Browning of Bloomberg put it in his helpful written submissions (24.3.26): \u2026 from the media\u2019s perspective, covering the UWO brought against the [Respondent] without naming that person leaves a major gap in our coverage. It leaves readers guessing and unsure as to the importance and impact of the case. It downplays the reporting of the case, making it appear less newsworthy than it actually is. 71. Second, the case-specific context is, in my assessment, very important. This case has arisen out of significant and high profile proceedings in Singapore, which relate to money laundering. The scale is known to be vast. As Mr Browning put it, the case \u201cappears to stem from one of the largest money laundering scandals to ever hit Singapore\u201d. It has been reported in the public domain, that $944m in assets were forfeited from ten people who were prosecuted and convicted, and the $1.85bn in assets were then surrendered from fifteen others who were dealt with. The proceedings in Singapore, with the ten prosecutions and convictions, and the fifteen people pursued and dealt with, have all already been widely reported, by the press, without anonymisation, and are already in the public domain. I assess that there is a very strong public interest in full reporting of High Court proceedings which are linked to those fully-reported overseas proceedings; and a very strong public interest in recognising the bigger picture. Viewed in purely domestic terms, this is nothing but a civil recovery investigation at an early information-gathering stage. But that is not the reality, when the position is viewed globally. In looking at the wider picture, I bear in mind that there are applicable public policy based criteria as to \u201cdual criminality\u201d, which I have held in Judgment No.1 have been satisfied. Looking at the wider picture, there have been criminal proceedings in a public court in Singapore, through to convictions. That includes the Respondent\u2019s uncle, and an associate of her father. Each has been convicted, in a criminal court, at a public hearing. Each has been named. Then there has been the pursuit by the Singapore authorities of the Respondent\u2019s father, dealt with by the surrender of assets. The father has also been named in public domain press reporting. The relevant, known and publicised backcloth includes a criminal process that has run its course, where recovery steps have been successful, and where the Respondent\u2019s relevant and close family members have been named. If those linked events had taken place in the territory of the UK, pursued by UK enforcement authorities, they would plainly be weighty features. The fact that they have taken place overseas and have involved the authorities of another country does not, in my judgment, substantially undermine their potency. I accept Ms Overman\u2019s emphasis on the fact that: this is a case in which the underlying subject-matter (namely, the largest money laundering operation in Singapore\u2019s history, and the possibility that proceedings from that operation have found their way into this jurisdiction) is of undoubted and significant public interest. Moreover, the Respondent\u2019s father and uncle have already been publicly identified in connection with the money laundering operation. The consequences of this are that: (i) the Media Organisations\u2019 ability to report on these individuals (and the fact that efforts to recover assets linked to their activities have resulted in a UWO granted by an English court against their relative in England) is also restricted \u2026 72. Third, it is relevant, in my assessment, that there has been interim protection and anonymisation would be being discharged only after a full inter partes hearing at which the Respondent has been heard on all aspects, and has had a full and fair opportunity to argue for continued anonymisation. The interim protection has also enabled me to see the implications of anonymisation. The anonymisation of Judgment No.1 discloses the fact of links, but then precludes the identification of the uncle or the father, and even the description of a relevant press report. Lifting anonymity will enable members of the press to report, and the public to receive, relevant information and make connections between items of information in the public domain. 73. Fourth, in my assessment it is relevant that the Court\u2019s judicial acts serve to promote an informed understanding of the true position, by promulgating clear judgments in the public domain. I proceed with caution and circumspection. I recall, and incorporate, the findings which I have made (\u00a762 above). 74. In light of my evaluative assessment of all of these features \u2013 and what I have said earlier in this judgment about building blocks and key themes \u2013 the Respondent\u2019s argument, which I earlier set out in detail, has failed to demonstrate that the continuation of the derogations from open justice are justified as necessary. The presumption in favour of open justice stands. It stands undisplaced by \u2013 and not outweighed by \u2013 any sufficiently cogent countervailing justification. The serious and significant Article 8 interference is prescribed by the law, pursues a legitimate aim, and is necessary in a democratic society. What prevail, ultimately, over the interference with the Respondent\u2019s Article 8 rights, are the interlinking interests of a constitutional principle, Article 10 rights and related public interest considerations. PART 6: CONSEQUENTIALS 75. And so, for all these reasons, I have decided to discharge the orders for anonymity and reporting restrictions; to publish the unredacted Glossary; and to direct the release to the public domain of the private judgment [2025] EWHC 1908 (Admin). I will, however, need to act to protect the Respondent\u2019s appeal rights. To allow for the possibility of her appealing my decision, I have prepared a short confidential draft Judgment No.3, made available to the NCA and the Respondent but not to the Interveners. This names the Respondent and contains the unredacted Glossary from Judgment No.1. It would be released to the Interveners and into the public domain, only if the Respondent were to reach the end of her appeal rights without my decision being overturned. 76. The parties were agreed that the appropriate Order, to give effect to the judgment of the Court circulated in draft, has the following components: (1) The anonymity order shall be revoked. (2) The private judgment [2025] EWHC 1908 (Admin) shall be released into the public domain. (3) Judgment No.3 shall be provided to the Interveners and released into the public domain. (4) Paragraphs (1) to (3) are suspended until any appeal to the Court of Appeal is finally determined or otherwise resolved. The private judgment and Judgment No.3 shall, therefore, not be released into the public domain until any such appeal is determined or resolved. (5) The Respondent do pay the NCA\u2019s costs of the hearing on 25 March 2026, summarily assessed by consent in the sum of \u00a357,926.10. (6) There shall be no order in respect of the Interveners\u2019 costs. 77. The one contested consequential matter is the Respondent\u2019s application for permission to appeal. Two grounds of appeal are advanced, whose essence is this. First, that my approach to the law was wrong, as to the interplay between the open justice principle and Article 8 in the context of UWO proceedings. Second, that my application of the law was wrong, in concluding that the derogation from open justice was not necessary in this case. This judgment sets out what \u2013 for my part \u2013 I consider to be legally and evaluatively correct, and why. The question now changes. I ask whether \u2013 for my part \u2013 I can see a realistic prospect of the Court of Appeal overturning my decision. My confidence in the correctness of my approach, and the permissibility of my evaluation, does not extend to my assessing as unrealistic the prospect of the Court of Appeal finding that my approach was wrong, or my evaluative judgment impermissible. That being so, the Respondent has my permission, on both grounds, to pursue an appeal if she wishes to do so.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

Sources officielles :<\/strong> consulter la page source<\/a><\/p>\n

Open Justice Licence v2.0 (The National Archives). Republication avec attribution. Computational analysis necessite accord complementaire.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Neutral Citation Number: [2026] EWHC 929 (Admin) Case No: AC-2025-LON-002288 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE KING’S BENCH DIVISION ADMINISTRATIVE COURT SITTING IN LONDON Friday, 24th April 2026 Before: MR JUSTICE FORDHAM – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – Between: NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY Applicant – and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":[],"kji_country":[7608],"kji_court":[7649],"kji_chamber":[],"kji_year":[7610],"kji_subject":[7650],"kji_keyword":[7919,9055,8962,7617,7634],"kji_language":[7611],"class_list":["post-933589","kji_decision","type-kji_decision","status-publish","hentry","kji_country-royaume-uni","kji_court-high-court-administrative-court","kji_year-7610","kji_subject-administratif","kji_keyword-application","kji_keyword-justice","kji_keyword-private","kji_keyword-public","kji_keyword-respondent","kji_language-anglais"],"yoast_head":"\nNational Crime Agency v GKC (No 2) - Ma\u00eetre Hassan Kohen, avocat en droit p\u00e9nal \u00e0 Paris<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/kohenavocats.com\/en\/jurisprudences\/national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"National Crime Agency v GKC (No 2)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Neutral Citation Number: [2026] EWHC 929 (Admin) Case No: AC-2025-LON-002288 IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE KING'S BENCH DIVISION ADMINISTRATIVE COURT SITTING IN LONDON Friday, 24th April 2026 Before: MR JUSTICE FORDHAM - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Between: NATIONAL CRIME AGENCY Applicant - and...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/kohenavocats.com\/en\/jurisprudences\/national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Ma\u00eetre Hassan Kohen, avocat en droit p\u00e9nal \u00e0 Paris\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"84 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/jurisprudences\\\/national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/jurisprudences\\\/national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2\\\/\",\"name\":\"National Crime Agency v GKC (No 2) - Ma\u00eetre Hassan Kohen, avocat en droit p\u00e9nal \u00e0 Paris\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2026-05-21T00:31:55+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/jurisprudences\\\/national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/jurisprudences\\\/national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/jurisprudences\\\/national-crime-agency-v-gkc-no-2\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/criminal-law-attorneys-in-paris-counsel-and-strategic-defense\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Jurisprudences\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/jurisprudences\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":3,\"name\":\"National Crime Agency v GKC (No 2)\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/kohenavocats.com\\\/en\\\/\",\"name\":\"Kohen Avocats\",\"description\":\"Ma\u00eetre Hassan Kohen, avocat p\u00e9naliste \u00e0 Paris, intervient exclusivement en droit p\u00e9nal pour la d\u00e9fense des particuliers, notamment en mati\u00e8re d\u2019accusations de viol. 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