Cyber-Ticket Touting as Fraudulent Trading
| Author | Dennis Baker |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/00220183221107544 |
| Published date | 01 October 2022 |
| Date | 01 October 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Comment |
Cyber-Ticket Touting as Fraudulent
Trading
Dennis Baker
De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
Abstract
This note examines the case of R v Hunter and argues that the offence of fraudulent trading
requires the business itself to be used as an instrument of fraud. It is submitted that this offence
is a financial offence found in the Company Act 2006 (with a corresponding offence in the Fraud
Act 2006), because an integral aspect of a business is that it generates profits or at least its
raison d’être is to generate profit. Many businesses run at a loss, but that is not the raison
d’être of a business. If it is accepted that it is the business itself that needs to be the instrument
of fraud, then there is no need to consider the elements of the incidental frauds (false repre-
sentations, deception etc) used by that business to maintain itself as an instrument of fraud. It is
also submitted that the decision in R v Hunter is erroneous to the extent it suggests that wilful
blindness is sufficient mens rea.
Keywords
Trading, fraudulent, criminal law, law, mental element
Introduction
This paper will look at the recent case of R v Hunter
1
(Green, LJ, delivered the judgment of the Court, in
which Macur, LJ and Cheema-Grubb J, concurred) which raised questions about the application of the
offence of fraudulent trading to commercial scale cyber-touting. The use of bots and algorithms to
deceive computers into “bulk selling”tickets that are not for “bulk sale”could be brought within the
purview of the offences found in ss 1 and 2 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990,
2
but that approach has
not thus far been taken. There are plethora of offences criminalising ticket touting itself such as s 166
of the Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 and The Ticket Touting (Designation of Football
Matches) Order 2007. Third parties are also proscribed from running advertisements for ticket touts (s
Corresponding author:
Dennis Baker, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK.
E-mail: dennis.baker@dmu.ac.uk
1. [2021] EWCA Crim 1785.
2. Hunterand Smith used “bots”and false information to circumvent computer code on the primary ticket sellers’computers which
aimed to prevent bulk purchases. They surreptitiously obtained tickets in bulk and resold them and knew full well that primary
ticket vendors were only selling due to the bots deceiving their computers.
Comment
The Journal of Criminal Law
2022, Vol. 86(5) 353–363
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/00220183221107544
journals.sagepub.com/home/clj
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