We’re fighting dodgy tax schemes in the High Court

This morning we’re in the High Court, asking Mrs Justice Collins-Rice to kick out a suit for libel brought against Dan Neidle for reporting on dodgy schemes to avoid tax.

This case started when Dan spotted a scheme from Arka Wealth going viral on TikTok, with the company notching up 2.2 million likes on its videos and gathering 237,000 followers. The firm claimed its scheme could allow people to avoid all income tax, capital gains tax, corporation tax and inheritance tax.

When Dan looked into the scheme, he found it was bound to fail and would leave anyone who used it in big trouble with HMRC. 

He was particularly concerned that a barrister, Setu Kamal, had vouched for Arka Wealth in its videos. 

Dan explained how Kamal was posing a risk to the public by endorsing a “nonsense” tax avoidance scheme on his blog – unleashing a tide of legal threats from Kamal. Eventually, Kamal issued an £8m defamation claim against Dan – one of the largest libel suits in English history.

Kamal claimed that Neidle has “attributed a scheme to me which was not devised by me or opined by me at all” and that Neidle’s blog caused harm to his reputation.

We are standing by Dan. His work to expose tax avoidance schemes benefits us all – protecting those who might have considered signing up for these schemes, and highlighting where the government could do more to crack down. 

We’re asking the High Court to strike out Kamal’s claim because Dan’s criticisms were his honest opinions – which are protected by law – and also because the claim is a SLAPP – a strategic lawsuit against public participation. 

SLAPPs are attempts to use the legal system to shut down free speech and honest reporting with inflated and unfounded legal threats. Our application is the first to be made under the anti-SLAPP law which was introduced under the Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Act 2023.

We’re arguing that Kamal’s unfounded claims of malice and his demand that Dan apologise in public – by saying Kamal is “the leading barrister in the field of taxation in the country” – are typical behaviours in a SLAPP.

Since we offered to support Dan, HMRC has named Kamal as a promoter of other tax avoidance schemes that they say “do not work”, schemes that put people at risk of “tax bills, interest and potential penalties”.

Investigative journalism which exposes wrongdoing is an essential feature of a functioning democracy. It is vital that bullyboy tactics attempting to silence journalists are given short shrift by our courts. We’ll be making this point strongly in court today.