The applicant argued the respondent never invested the money at all and instead spent it on personal expenses. The respondent denied that, saying he had invested the funds but that they lost all their value. 

The tribunal member did not have to decide who was right about personal spending. What mattered was evidence. The respondent, who represented himself, filed no financial records showing any investment or any loss. The tribunal noted that if the money had been invested, records would have been easy to produce. 

That gap decided the case. Drawing what tribunals call an adverse inference – the principle that missing evidence can count against the party who should have had it – the member…