UT (Tax & Chancery) UT-2024-000044 - [2025] UKUT 00094 (TCC)

Again, we accept Mr Stone’s reasons in rejecting this ground.

It is impossible to read clause 2.6 as meaning that the location and dates of programmes were subject to agreement between Sky and Mr Thompson, with Mr Thompson therefore having an effective veto. It is contrary to the express term.

The FTT decided that the clause should be limited by requiring the Appellant to provide Mr Thompson’s services only on the times and dates “reasonably required” by Sky. For the reasons set out above, the reasonableness term is unobjectionable and discloses no error of law.

There was no error of law in the FTT’s Decision but, in the alternative, any error was not material. The FTT would have been entitled to conclude that the hypothetical contract between Sky and Mr Thompson would have required Mr Thompson to comply with all instructions to perform the services at locations and times “reasonably required”, in the context also of Mr Thompson’s services being limited in the hypothetical contract only to those identified at [57].

The FTT’s interpretation of the hypothetical contract between Sky and Mr Thompson