There's one law for them and another law for us (Part 94)

From the BBC:

The elections watchdog has ruled that the Liberal Democrats can keep £2.4m in donations which it had been suggested came from a man convicted of fraud.

Michael Brown was convicted of stealing more than £30m from clients last year. The court case heard he channelled money through a company called 5th Avenue Partners to the Lib Dems. But the Electoral Commission said there was no "reasonable basis" to conclude that he had donated the money.

Wot?

Whether or not "he" donated the money and what the source of that money was is irrelevant. The only question is whether 5th Avenue Partners Limited was carrying on a business in the UK, see Section 54(2) of PPERA 2000.

The first place you look when you're trying to find out about a company is Companies House Direct, which tells us that neither this company nor the similarly named 5th Avenue Partners (UK) Limited ever filed accounts, i.e. there was no reason for anybody to assume that they were trading in the UK, unless of course the company proved to the Lib Dems that it had already started carrying on a business but, being newly incorporated, had not yet filed accounts.

El Comm say that they examined an "accountants' analysis", I'd love to see that, as I am in this line of business myself. I'd assume it includes stuff like an 88(2) subscription for share capital, bank account details, rental agreements, employment contracts, PAYE and VAT registrations, payments for this, that and the other. You don't exactly need to be an expert to understand this, do you?

End of discussion.

UPDATE: Back in October 2006, a High Court, in a separate case brought by aggrieved investors, ruled that the company had not traded, although from the circumstances, what the judge meant was the company had not traded [in bonds on behalf of its investors]. Hmm.

According to El Comm, the Lib Dems managed to produce loads of evidence suggesting that this was an actual business. Ho hum.