UT (Tax & Chancery) UT/2023/000103 - [2025] UKUT 00102 (TCC)

The second part of this Ground refers to the following two passages from the FTT Decision, at [107] and [118]:

“Mr Ballard provided evidence at the Tribunal of the replacement costs of a new trademark, essentially accepting the costs approach to valuing the trademark, which he estimated to be £60,500. We saw no corroborating evidence of these costs and have some doubts about the basis of this estimate, particularly in the context of a business which was in any event planning to change its core activities.”

“Mr Ballard did produce some estimates of the costs of reproducing the Ballards trademark, but we were not provided with any evidence to support his figures.”

Mr Simpson submitted that the FTT was wrong to reject Mr Ballard’s evidence, which he described as “acceptably clear and definite”, adding that there was “no inherent reason” to reject it, for example there was “no internal inconsistency or incoherence, and no apparent
exaggeration”. He criticised the FTT for doubting Mr Ballard’s evidence in part because of the changes to the business to include aggregates and military work, saying that household removals remained Ballards core business at the relevant time, and the new work was “an irrelevant matter” such as to constitute an error of law.