In the Privy Council: Grant Adams v The Queen

Abstract

The defendant was a Director and Deputy Chairman of Equiticorp Holdings Ltd, a company based in New Zealand. As part of the company's ‘investment team’, he was asked by the Chairman, Allan Robert Hawkins, to set up a series of companies, an overseas structure, through which transactions could be conducted and the source of those transactions be concealed. This was referred to as the Yeoman Loop. In a series of five transactions it was alleged the defendant and the five other members of the investment team used this Loop to disguise or conceal from the company transactions whereby money was passed through it being converted in most cases into different currencies and finally, in all but one occasion being paid out to the investment team themselves through the company's solicitors. One of those transactions related to shares in Keady Ltd belonging to EIHK, a subsidiary of EHL, which were, after passing through the Loop, transferred to the conspirators and in part sold back to EHL. The trading of those shares was commented upon at a Board meeting of EHL in February 1987 and, although present, no member of the investment team made comment on their dealings. When in May 1987 the auditors asked for confirmation that the independent directors had approved the sale of shares in Keady Ltd to the investment team, the defendant, at Hawkins' request, drafted a minute of a non‐existent meeting wherein two independent directors approved the allocation of shares.

Citation

Daniels, I. (1996), "In the Privy Council: Grant Adams v The Queen", Journal of Financial Crime, Vol. 3 No. 4, pp. 381-383. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb025742