U.K. Electoral Commission Sued for Allowing Vote Leave Spending

(Bloomberg) -- A campaign group has filed a lawsuit against the U.K. Electoral Commission for allowing overspending by Vote Leave in the run up to the Brexit referendum.

The case is regarding a 625,000-pound ($820,000) donation apparently made by Vote Leave to one of its “outreach groups” in the days before the vote. If the amount was included in the spending return, Vote Leave would have overspent by almost 10 percent, resulting in a criminal offense, said Jo Maugham, a tax attorney and founder and director of the Good Law Project.

The non-profit organization wants the U.K.’s High Court to decide if the Electoral Commission was wrong in allowing the spending and is seeking a full hearing before year-end, it said in a statement. The Commission has until Nov. 13 to respond.

Vote Leave gave the 625,000 pounds to a student, who then used it to hire a firm called AggregateIQ, the Guardian reported in September. The firm then produced a Facebook campaign for the U.K. leaving the European Union, according to the newspaper. The Electoral Commission has said the spending did not breach electoral guidelines, the Guardian reported.

To contact the reporter on this story: Rakteem Katakey in London at rkatakey@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Herron at jherron9@bloomberg.net, Nicholas Larkin, Stephen Treloar

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