POCA Weekly Case Updates May Week 1
A quiet week. No new E&W POCA judgments and no POCA-relevant legislation or statutory instruments were made or came into force in the coverage period. The only item with even a tangential POCA connection is Taylor v Spring [2026] UKPC 18, a Privy Council appeal from the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago handed down on 29 April 2026. The case turns on a Trinidad and Tobago "preliminary unexplained wealth order" regime under that jurisdiction's Civil Asset Recovery and Management and Unexplained Wealth Act 2019 — a statute that does not mirror the UK Part 8 UWO regime in ss.362A–362R POCA — and is included below for completeness rather than as a binding (or particularly persuasive) addition to the E&W POCA case-law corpus.
New judgments
[2026] UKPC 18 — Richard Taylor (Asst Supt of Police) v Natalie Natasha Spring & anor (Trinidad and Tobago)
Court: Judicial Committee of the Privy Council Date: 29 April 2026 Judges: Lord Reed, Lord Leggatt, Lord Burrows (delivering the judgment), Lord Stephens, Lord Doherty POCA provisions: none directly (T&T Civil Asset Recovery and Management and Unexplained Wealth Act 2019, ss.3, 4, 58, 61, 63, 65, 67, cross-referenced to T&T Proceeds of Crime Act 2000) Link: https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukpc/2026/18
Appeal from the Court of Appeal of Trinidad and Tobago against the reinstatement of a Preliminary Unexplained Wealth Order ("PUWO") granted ex parte on 10 December 2019 against Natalie Spring and the estate of the late Sheldon Spring. Three issues fell to be decided: (i) the sufficiency of the evidence to support the four limbs of "reasonable suspicion" required by s.58(1) of the 2019 Act; (ii) whether the suspicion was formed "during the course of an investigation for a specified offence", and the retrospectivity of the 2019 Act in respect of pre-commencement investigations and conduct (ss.4(1), 65(2)(b)); and (iii) whether a PUWO can be made against the estate of a deceased person. The Board, in a judgment delivered by Lord Burrows, dismissed the appeal: reasonable suspicion was made out on the four limbs, the Act applies retrospectively to investigations and conduct predating its 2019 commencement, and a PUWO can be granted against an estate via a personal representative — a Consolidated CPR (T&T) r.21.7(4) irregularity being cured by back-dating Mrs Spring's appointment as administratrix ad litem to 9 December 2019.
For an E&W POCA practitioner the case is of limited utility. The T&T regime under the 2019 Act is a payment-and-forfeiture order made on reasonable-suspicion evidence, not the investigatory information-order under our ss.362A–362R POCA, and the judgment makes no reference to UK POCA 2002, the UK UWO regime or UK Part 5 civil recovery. The only English authority cited is A v Secretary of State for the Home Department (No 2) [2004] EWCA Civ 1123 at [229] (Laws LJ on the difference between suspicion and belief), which is well known to E&W counsel from other contexts. The case is therefore best understood as a domestic T&T construction matter on a bespoke statute, and is unlikely to repay close citation in this jurisdiction beyond a passing reference to the suspicion/belief dictum, where counsel will already reach for A v SSHD (No 2) directly.
Legislation & SIs
No new POCA-relevant primary legislation or statutory instruments were made, came into force, or had a relevant amendment commenced in the coverage period. The most recent POCA-titled SIs remain SI 2025/877 (Money Laundering Threshold Amount Amendment) and SI 2025/537 (References to Financial Investigators Amendment). Statutory Instruments published on legislation.gov.uk during the window (28 April – 4 May 2026) were screened against POCA-relevant subjects (proceeds of crime, money laundering, terrorist financing, asset recovery, sanctions in an asset-recovery context, unexplained wealth, account freezing, criminal finances, cryptoasset forfeiture, and amendments to the Money Laundering Regulations 2017): none matched.
