Legal bid to uncover Trump's Scottish golf course finances fails

A legal bid to force Holyrood to investigate how Donald Trump paid for two Scottish golf courses has failed.

Lawyers for human rights organisation AVAAZ argued ministers were wrong not to pursue an unexplained wealth order probe against the former US President

It wanted a probe into the financing of the Menie golf course in Aberdeenshire and the Turnberry resort in Ayrshire.

At the Court of Session Lord Sandison found that ministers had acted lawfully and in line with legislation.

In a written judgment issued on Thursday, he rejected the arguments made by the New York-based human rights group.

The Scottish Green Party first called for an unexplained wealth order amid questions about how Mr Trump had managed to finance the purchases of the courses at Turnberry in 2014 and at Menie in Aberdeenshire, in 2006.

The UK government introduced the orders to help investigations into money laundering and other criminal financial activity.

Patrick Harvie, the Greens co-leader, has said Trump's unusual pattern of spending and the ongoing civil and criminal cases in the US provided Scottish authorities with the grounds to investigate the businessman.

But Mr Trump's son Eric Trump warned that the move could deter overseas investors.

First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish Parliament that the responsibility for the investigation lay with the Crown Office's Civil Recovery Unit - which was politically independent from the government.

The then Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf later announced that Ms Sturgeon was mistaken - and that the law did allow for the Scottish government to launch an unexplained wealth order investigation.

This prompted AVAAZ to instruct lawyers to go to the Court of Session.

In October 2021, Aidan O'Neill QC said that by looking at the legislation, the court would see that it is the Scottish ministers and not Scotland's most senior prosecutor, the Lord Advocate, who are responsible for ordering an unexplained wealth order investigation.

He added: "We say that duty results in ultimately the finding that it cannot be the Lord Advocate who is designated as being the responsible minister in terms of the seeking of unexplained wealth orders in terms of politically exposed persons."

The Scottish Ministers contested the action and its legal team told the court that it had acted lawfully in the affair.

Lord Sandison agreed with the submissions made to him by the government's lawyers.

He wrote: "I shall repel the petitioner's pleas in law, sustain the respondents' second plea in law, and refuse the substantive prayers of the petition."