“There is a strong presumption against a stay and it is a power which has to be exercised with great care and only where there is a real risk of serious prejudice which may lead to injustice.” 15. Whilst he certainly did say that at paragraph 16, he made a number of other very pertinent points, with all of which I agree. Those are:- (a) At paragraph 11 he stated that the Tribunal should be guided by the Overriding objective (and I annex a copy thereof at Appendix 1) and the need to balance the competing interests of the parties. (b) He went on to state that “It is unusual for the subject of criminal proceedings not to wish to stay parallel civil proceedings ….”
“It is appropriate that the overarching fairness factor should be taken into account in assessing the effect of the decision on the application on both sides”. 18. Dhillon v Asiedu [6] at paragraph 30 confirms that Case Management decisions are a balancing exercise which must take into account all relevant factors. Both parties are entitled to have a case dealt with fairly and justly. The exercise of judicial discretion must be in accord with the Overriding objective. 19. There are a number of issues in this matter but key amongst them is that whilst the Tribunal and the parties can identify the subject matter and the period to which it relates in the civil proceedings, there is a total lack of clarity as to whether there will be criminal proceedings, if so in what forum, relating to what and the timescale for those proceedings. 20. I agree with Judge Mosedale at paragraph 10 of Fang that: “It is not enough to show that there may be some factual areas of overlap, or that the appellant could be cross examined twice (once in the civil and once in the criminal courts) on the same matter. It must be shown it would prejudice the criminal trial and it could only do that if evidence arising in or findings from the civil case were used against the defendant by the prosecution or known to the jury. I do not see that it matters if it is merely known to the prosecution if they cannot use it in the trial.” 21. All that is being alleged by HMRC is a hypothetical risk of prejudice and there is no evidence beyond what amounts to a simple averment. That is not evidence of serious risk. 22. By contrast, the appellant alleges that he is exposed to serious prejudice because it is his case that he will win some part or all of these civil proceedings and in that event HMRC would owe him large sums of money. The lack of those funds is putting huge pressure on his working capital and therefore causing potential problems with accessing funds. 23. His primary issue is that he has the right to have these proceedings determined within a reasonable time and, although he has been reasonable thus far in acceding to HMRC’s requests for sist, he now needs to have a degree of certainty. 24. Although the appeal is not particularly “stale”