Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber

[2025] UKUT 00185 (TCC)

Fecha: 09-Abr-2025

Who was at the meeting

Who was at the meeting

303.

There was a dispute as to who attended the meeting; Mr Lane’s evidence was that Mr Sadler and Mr Cheyne left at the end of the training session, but Mr Arden said that all three attended.

304.

Mr Sadler and Mr Cheyne were asked by the Authority to give evidence about the meeting, but neither was able “definitively” to recall it; Ms Roberts was asked about it when she gave oral evidence but could not add to her witness statement.

305.

In reliance on Ms Roberts’s contemporaneous email, and taking into account that Mr Lane did not attend the Tribunal to be cross-examined, we find that all three did attend. However, we also find that the advice was given only by Mr Lane, because:

(1)

Mr Arden’s oral evidence was that he and Mr Lane did most of the talking;

(2)

Ms Roberts’s evidence was that (our emphasis) Mr Arden did “most of the talking and the Linklaters partner asked questions”;

(3)

Mr Arden’s witness statement refers only to statements he said were made by Mr Lane (and does not refer to anything said by the other two Linklaters attendees) and he repeated this from the witness box, saying “Mr Lane provided advice”; and

(4)

Linklaters’s contemporaneous time record states that Mr Lane spent two hours at the Bank, which included both the training session and the meeting; Mr Sadler spent two hours on preparing for and attending the training session, but with no reference to the meeting, and Mr Cheyne spent 1.5 hours preparing for and attending the training session, but again without reference to the meeting. Although we have found they did attend, we also find that they did not give advice; had they done so, it is unlikely that they would have omitted any reference to the meeting when they completed their timesheets.