Margot Serra and Ors v His Majesty's Attorney General for Gibraltar

In Margot Serra and Ors v His Majesty's Attorney General for Gibraltar [2024] GCA 008, the Court of Appeal upheld a recovery order made by Chief Justice Dudley. The appellants argued that there was insufficient evidence connecting the acquisition of the assets to unlawful conduct occurring before the properties were purchased. The Court of Appeal rejected that argument, holding that the trial judge was entitled to consider the evidence as a whole and draw reasonable inferences from the surrounding circumstances. The court found there was ample material supporting the conclusion that the assets were acquired using proceeds of drug trafficking and dismissed the appeal.¹

The matter then proceeded to the Privy Council in Margot Serra and Ors v Attorney General for Gibraltar [2026] UKPC 28. The appellants attempted to frame the case as involving issues of statutory interpretation, arguing that POCA required direct evidence of unlawful conduct predating the acquisition of the assets. The Privy Council disagreed. It held that the appeal was, in substance, an attempt to challenge factual findings already made by the Chief Justice and affirmed by the Court of Appeal.

Applying the long-established rule in Devi v Roy, the Board emphasized that it will not ordinarily revisit concurrent findings of fact made by two lower courts unless exceptional circumstances exist. Finding that there was ample evidence supporting the conclusions reached below and no exceptional circumstances justifying intervention, the Privy Council dismissed the appeal.

Taken together, the decisions confirm the breadth of Gibraltar's civil recovery regime and demonstrate that courts may rely on circumstantial evidence and reasonable inferences to determine whether property represents the proceeds of unlawful conduct. They also serve as a reminder that appeals challenging factual findings face a particularly high threshold once those findings have been endorsed by both a trial court and an appellate court.