Charlotte Hadfield

Call 1999
Email charlotte.hadfield@3pb.co.uk
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Asset and Tax Recovery Group

Charlotte undertakes the full range of asset forfeiture work including the enforcement of confiscation orders under the DTA, CJA and POCA, accepting instructions from the Crown (CPS, BERR, SOCA), the defence and third parties.  She has extensive experience of drafting Restraint, Management Receivership and Enforcement Receivership orders under the Criminal Justice Act 1988, the Drug Trafficking Act 1994 and the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, and regularly appears in the High Court and Crown Court on such applications; she has advised on issues arising out of such orders, including living expenses, third party debtors, insolvency, interested parties, property disputes, assets outside the jurisdiction, remuneration of Receivers, lifting the corporate veil, ancillary relief, certificates of inadequacy and contempt proceedings.  She has acted for third parties asserting an interest in restrained property.  She has also defended judicial review proceedings arising out of the imposition of a default sentence by an enforcing magistrates’ court.

Charlotte acts for HMRC in the following cases:

• Condemnation appeals
• Cash forfeiture appeals
• Restoration appeals
• MTIC-related VAT appeals in the First Tier Tribunal

Notable Cases

Hunova-Trans Kft v Revenue & Customs Commissioners (2011) -
the Upper Tribunal (Tax Chamber) ruling upheld the Commissioners' decision not to restore a vehicle seized from an international haulage company for smuggling cigarettes.

R v Islam [2009] UKHL 30 -
landmark case reversing a long line of authority under which the value of drugs in the hands of a defendant must be treated as having no market value.

R v M [2008] EWCA Crim 3110 -
instructed to draft receivership papers, resist D’s appeal against his confiscation order, and resist his application for judicial review of the enforcing magistrates' court's decision to order him to serve the default sentence;