COMPANY director Michael Doyle has had his appeal against a decision of the Seneschal of Sark turned down. Just hours after the Bailiff, Sir de Vic Carey, delivered the judgement on Friday afternoon, Mr Doyle, of Castle Company Management, was planning the next step in his fight to get a fiduciary licence from the Guernsey Financial Services Commission.

‘I have already commenced proceedings to lodge our appeal,’ said Mr Doyle.

He did not expect the Court of Appeal to hear his case until next year.

The Bailiff agreed with Sark’s deputy seneschal, Jeremy La Trobe-Bateman’s, earlier rejection of Mr Doyle’s appeal, which was based on four points of law.

During the appeal hearing earlier this month, Mr Doyle criticised Sark’s legal system, questioning whether Mr La Trobe-Bateman – a carpenter by trade – was qualified to hear the appeal.

In his 15-page judgement, Sir de Vic said that he found that line of argument ‘most unattractive’, but that he did not dismiss it solely because the point should have been taken in the court below.

‘A disinterested bystander could observe that this matter proceeded in a court with a lay judge unassisted by a qualified clerk,’ he said.

‘This may be unusual but there are two clear answers to any such concerns. The first is that appeals challenging the reasonableness of the commission’s decision were clearly intended to be brought before the court in the island where the dissatisfied applicant carried on business rather than in Guernsey.

‘Secondly, there is as I have explained a right to appeal to this court and onwards on any issue of law.’

One of Mr Doyle’s grounds was that the commission should not have adopted the Shadow Financial Services Tribunal’s recommendation that a fiduciary licence not be granted because it was not a statutory body.

But the Bailiff said that steps were taken to give it a degree of independence; Michael Blair, QC, who was helped by two experienced lay people, chaired it.

‘As they were appointees of the commission and had no standing under the law, it is not suggested that they were in any way an independent and impartial tribunal for the purposes of the Human Rights Convention,’ he said.

‘However, the members were clearly independent of the commission’s officers. They made certain criticisms of the way in which certain matters were handled by the GFSC.’

Although Mr Doyle had criticised the way the commission and the tribunal worked, the Bailiff said it was clear the commissioners sat independently and made the final decision.

‘With respect, Mr Doyle cannot have it both ways,’ he said.

‘The commission went to the trouble of bringing in the shadow tribunal so as to ensure that there would be an independent review of the internal expertise that was being applied to consideration of these applications.

‘When the tribunal endorsed and amplified the reasoning of the commission’s officers, the GFSC cannot be criticised for following that advice.’

Costs were awarded against Mr Doyle, who had seven days to decide whether he wanted to dispute them and 28 days to lodge his formal appeal at the Greffe.

It was the first time the Royal Court had dealt with such a case and the GFSC’s director-general, Peter Neville, said afterwards: ‘In view of the commission’s original decision to refuse a licence to Castle Company Management, we were pleased that the Royal Court dismissed Castle’s appeal against that refusal.

‘As Castle has indicated an intention to make a further appeal, to the Guernsey Court of Appeal, it would be inappropriate for us to comment in more detail at this point.’