Lawyers for former Rangers administrators pursue damages claim over 'unlawful' warrant in fraud case raid

And now it has been confirmed that Holman Fenwick Willan is pursuing a claim against Police Scotland chief constable and the Lord Advocate, the chief legal officer of the Scottish Government and the Crown in Scotland. It is understood the amount to be claimed is still to be worked out.

The legal firm, which was last year's winner of the Lloyd's List Global Award for Corporate Social Responsibility, has claimed a breach of Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights over their "private life and correspondence".

There had been previous criticism in a costs judgement in favour of the firm released last week that Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Prosecutor Fiscal Service had "abused state power" in seizing privileged documents not covered by a search warrant. It led to calls for a Scottish Government review of procedures.

The judges ruled that the search warrant was of "excessive and unlawful width" and that the raid could have been avoided if the legal company had been "forewarned".

Fresh papers reveal that Lord Carloway, the Lord Justice-General and other senior high court judges had decided the search warrant issued by Glasgow Sheriff Court on December 4, 2015 was itself "unlawful". Craig Whyte is the only person charged in relation to his 2011 takeover. A trial is expected to start in mid 2017.

Charges against Paul Clark and David Whitehouse, the joint administrators of the club who worked for Duff and Phelps, were dropped earlier this year. Charges against their Duff & Phelps colleague David Grier, and lawyer Gary Withey have also been thrown out.

The claim is forming part of a judicial review of which court directions are still pending.

A judgment released for the first time in Holman Fenwick Willan's successful request for a judicial review, reveals that some 47 boxes of materials were removed from the offices as a result of the search, despite the fact that the firm maintained claims to privilege over much of it on behalf of its clients.

Lord Justice Gross and Mr Justice Mitting said that neither police or prosecutors had arranged for the presence of independent lawyers during the search, to ensure unrelated confidential and privileged documents were not seized.

The judges said that the search warrant was issued, endorsed and executed without prior notice to Holman Fenwick Willan even though they had had contact with the investigators for around two years.

Five days after the warrant was agreed Holman Fenwick Willan obtained an injunction preventing the removal of the seized materials to Scotland.

Two days later the firm began proceeding to challenge the legality and validity of the warrant.

On December 18, at a hearing of Holman Fenwick Willan's application for interim relief before the High Court in Edinburgh, Lady Dorrian directed that the seized documents should be returned to the offices of Holman Fenwick Willan - where they were to be held in a secure room pending a review of privilege.

Two months later Lord Carloway sitting in the Appeal Court in Edinburgh, held that the warrant should be suspended.

Lord Justice Gross and Mr Justice Mitting said Lord Carloway's "grave criticisms... reflect adversely" on the police and prosecutors.

"The warrant here was unlawful, as has now been held by Lord Carloway in Scotland," said the judges in the April hearing.

Lord Carloway had said in his February judgement, also released for the first time : "In these circumstances, an application to a sheriff for a warrant to search the first complainers’ premises to recover this material, without intimation, was oppressive."

He also said that the terms of the warrant "which are limitless in date and wide in their description of the potential recoverable material, are too vague to have sustainable validity; hence, presumably, the seizure of 47 boxes. On this basis, also, the warrant granted was oppressive."

He said that if the solicitors' firm's Article 8 rights were breached "it would have been because of the manner in which the warrant was executed without proper safeguards".

He added: "That may be sound in damages in a civil suit."

Lord Carloway said if the course of action by the Crown were to have "validity" it was incumbent on them to have notified the firm about the application for a warrant so hey could make representations about legal privilege.

"The sheriff could then have made such appropriate orders, as he deemed fit, to secure proper compliance with the law of privilege in respect of the recovery of the solicitors’ files," he said.

He added: "It is essential...that due caution is observed when a court is granting an order for the recovery of solicitors’ files. The need for such caution is even greater when a warrant is being granted with a view to its endorsation for execution outwith Scotland.

"In a case, such as this one, where it is clear that what is to be searched is a solicitors’ office and that legal privilege is being asserted, any warrant ought either to have provided for independent supervision of the police search by a Commissioner appointed by the court or to have contained a requirement that any material seized should be sealed unread and delivered to the court to enable the sheriff to adjudicate upon the issue."

A Crown Office spokesman said: "The Crown has taken steps, and will continue to take steps, along with the police and other reporting agencies, to ensure that the appropriate lessons are learned."

A Police Scotland spokeswoman said: "We are working closely with the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service in relation to this matter. "