Conspiracy to defraud

Conspiracy to defraud is an offence under the common law of England and Wales and Northern Ireland.

The standard definition of a conspiracy to defraud was provided by Lord Dilhorne in Scott v Metropolitan Police Commissioner, when he said that

it is clearly the law that an agreement by two or more by dishonesty to deprive a person of something which is his or to which he is or would be entitled and an agreement by two or more by dishonesty to injure some proprietary right of his, suffices to constitute the offence of conspiracy to defraud.

Conspiracy to defraud therefore contains two key elements; that the conspiracy involved dishonesty, and that if the conspiracy was undertaken, the victim's property rights would be harmed. This does not require the defendants' actions to directly result in the fraud; in R v Hollinshead, the House of Lords held that producing devices designed to alter electricity meter readings constituted conspiracy to defraud, even though the actual fraud would be carried out by members of the public rather than the conspirators. In two situations, it will not even be necessary for the actions to directly lead to any kind of financial loss for the victim; these are when the conspirators plan to deceive a person holding public office into acting counter to their duties, and when the conspirators know that their actions put the victim's property at risk, even if the risk never materialises.

The following cases are also relevant to this offence:

Although most frauds are crimes, it is irrelevant for these purposes whether the agreement would amount to a crime if carried out. If the victim has suffered of any financial or other prejudice there of, there is no need to establish that the defendant deceived him or her. But, following Scott v Metropolitan Police Commissioner (1974) 3 All ER 1032, it is necessary to prove that the victim was dishonestly deceived by one or more of the parties to the agreement into running an economic risk that he or she would not otherwise have run, if the victim has not suffered any loss. For the mens rea, it is necessary to prove that "the purpose of the conspirators (was) to cause the victim economic loss" (per Lord Diplock in Scott). For the test of dishonesty, see R v Ghosh (1982) 2 All ER 689.

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