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ben_w

Leave.EU Group Limited:

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-w...

Conclusion: Leave.EU was ultimately fined £66,000 in total after their appeal.

Vote Leave Ltd:

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-w...

Conclusion: commission found evidence, issued fines, most significant fines appealed, commission lost appeal and paid costs.

Investigation into payments made to Better for the Country and Leave.EU:

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-w...

Conclusion: The Commission had reasonable grounds to suspect a number of criminal offences and have referred the matter to the National Crime Agency, who investigated and found not much.

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I'm genuinely confused by this: In 2018, Grimes was fined £20,000 by the Electoral Commission after it determined that there was evidence that BeLeave had spent more than £675,000 with the Canadian political consultancy firm AggregateIQ in coordination with the official Brexit campaign organisation Vote Leave in distribution targeted social media advertisements.[24] The Commission argued that these actions violated electoral spending rules, and that Grimes and Vote Leave official David Alan Halsall had made false declarations relating to the spending. Grimes appealed, claiming that his misstatements were unintentional, and his fine was overturned;[25] Vote Leave, however, withdrew its appeal and paid fines totalling £61,000.[26] Subsequently, in May 2020, the Metropolitan Police ended its investigation into Grimes and Halsall.[27] In June 2021, the Chairman of the Electoral Commission apologised to Grimes in a Sunday Telegraph interview.[28]

They lost their appeal but the Chairman of the Electoral Commission aplogised, and the Met found nothing

So the difference is that there were two fines issued for the same offence - one for 61K and one for 20K.

The specific offence was that there was collusion between BeLeave and Vote Leave which ultimately meant that money spent by BeLeave was actually supporting Vote Leave's campaign, which was not lawful.

Both 'parties' were fined - Vote Leave and BeLeave/Darren Grimes.

The judge who overturned Grimes's fine did not pass judgement on whether the spending was lawful or not.

The appeal was upheld based on the ruling that the Electoral Commission had not properly done their homework to prove BeLeave's legal status, or justify the maximum fine permissible for Grimes - essentially a procedural error, rather than a factual error.

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