[2025] UKUT 308 (AAC)

A theme of many of the Appellant’s arguments is that the First-tier Tribunal failed to carry out an adequate analysis of the application of the law of confidence to the facts of this case. As the Commissioner rightly submits, the problem with many of these arguments is that the Appellant’s case before the Tribunal was concerned with the application of the law of confidence to only a limited extent. All parties before the Tribunal were well aware that the issues on the appeal included whether disclosure of the Slides / the information within them would constitute an actionable breach of confidence. The Appellant was represented by counsel before the Tribunal, and the law of confidence is complex and highly developed. The Tribunal was therefore perfectly entitled to take the Appellant’s case on the law of confidence at face value. It did not err in law by failing to deal with, or failing thoroughly to deal with, some aspect of the law of confidence that did not feature in the Appellant’s argument. This means that the following arguments made under Ground 2 cannot succeed (cannot demonstrate that the Tribunal erred in law):