TC09548 - [2025] UKFTT 00700 (TC)

The approach to appealing case management decisions was summarised by Sales J (as he then was) in HMRC v Ingenious Games LLP [2014] UKUT 62 (TCC), [2014] STC 1416 at [56] and approved at [52] of the subsequent Ingenious Games judgment of Henderson J (as he then was), published under reference [2015] UKUT 0105 (TCC):

“The Upper Tribunal should not interfere with case management decisions of the FTT when it has applied the correct principles and has taken into account matters which should be taken into account and left out of account matters
which are irrelevant, unless the Upper Tribunal is satisfied that the decision is so plainly wrong that it must be regarded as outside the generous ambit of discretion entrusted to the FTT: Fattal v Walbrook Trustees (Jersey) Ltd [2008] EWCA Civ 427 at [33], [2008] All ER (D) 109 (May) at [33]; Revenue and Customs Comrs v Atlantic Electronics Ltd [2013] EWCA Civ 651 at [18], [2013] STC 1632 at [18]. The Upper Tribunal should exercise extreme caution before allowing appeals from the FTT on case management decisions: Goldman Sachs International v Revenue and Customs Comrs … [2009] UKUT 290 (TCC) at [23] – [24], [2010] STC 763 at [23] – [24].”

Similar statements have been made in subsequent judgments; for example in Fairford Group plc v HMRC [2014] UKUT 329 (TCC) (“Fairford”) at [28], the UT said:

“The right to appeal derives from s 11 of the Tribunals, Courts and Enforcement Act 2007, and is confined to a point of law. The Upper Tribunal should only interfere if it concludes that a decision is wrong in law or, to the extent that the FTT exercised a discretion, in doing so it failed to act reasonably and in a judicial way, see Mobile Export 365 Ltd and another v HMRC [2009] EWHC 797 (Ch) [2007] STC 1794 Sir Andrew Park at [13] and CCE v Young [1993] STC 394 at 397, Richards J. The FTT is conferred with a broad discretion in making case management decisions and this impacts on the degree of critical scrutiny which the Upper Tribunal will bring to bear.”