Holt v Attorney General - professional fees and the money laundering offences

Jenny Holt’s prosecution for money laundering in the Isle of Man created quite a stir, writes Jonathan Fisher QC. The trial Judge (the Deemster) had described Ms Holt, a young English barrister and Manx advocate employed by a firm called Moroneys, as “of exemplary positive good character” and “the sort of daughter every parent would be proud of”. Yet following her conviction and suspended sentence of 12 months imprisonment the headline in IOM Today screamed out that “Baines advocate should have gone to prison” (2 July 2011). In the event, Ms Holt’s conviction was subsequently quashed by the Privy Council (Holt v Attorney General [2014] UKPC 4). But in its wake the case has left some real anxieties about the application of the money laundering offences to fees paid to professional advisers, and particularly lawyers, for the services they are asked to render. The anxieties are exaggerated, though not entirely unfounded.