The National Crime Agency (NCA) erred in law by not investigating whether cotton imports from Xinjiang, China were the products of forced labour, the Court of Appeal has held
The World Uyghur Congress (WUC) gave the NCA evidence in 2020 that cotton from Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region was likely to have involved forced labour. It invited the NCA to investigate the imports for money laundering offences, under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The NCA declined, stating it was not required to investigate unless a specific shipment of cotton was identified as the proceeds of crime. It also said that once someone in the supply chain had paid ‘adequate consideration’ (market value) for the product, it could no longer be criminal property.
Handing down judgment in R (on the application of World Uyghur Congress) v National Crime Agency [2024] EWCA Civ 715 last week, the court found that both reasons given for refusing to investigate were wrong in law. It quashed the NCA’s decision and ordered it to reconsider.
Alice Hardy, partner, Bindmans, assisting WUC, said: ‘The NCA did not contest that the products of forced labour are criminal products, nor that 85% of cotton from China comes from the Uyghur region where there is clear evidence of serious human rights abuses, including forced labour.’
Lloyd Firth, counsel at WilmerHale, said: ‘This successful appeal judgment effectively re-states that the NCA does not need concrete evidence of particular crimes committed by particular persons before it opens a criminal (or civil) money laundering investigation and confirms that the provision of “adequate consideration” for criminal property anywhere in the supply chain does not have the effect of cleansing it, such that it cannot be recovered from anyone who subsequently acquires it.’
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