R (on the application of Refinitiv Limited and others) (Appellants) v Commissioners for His Majesty's Revenue and Customs (Respondent)

Case summary

Case ID

UKSC/2025/0018

Parties

Appellant(s)

1) Refinitiv Limited 2) Refinitiv UK Eastern Limited 3) Lipper Limited 4) Thomson Reuters Corporation

Respondent(s)

The Commissioners for HMRC

Issue

Were the charging notices to diverted profits tax (“DPT”) in the amount of c.£167 million issued by HMRC to the First to Third Appellants (the “Notices”) lawful?

Facts

The First to Third Appellants are UK tax resident companies who were, at all material times, part of the Thomson Reuters group. The Appellants and HMRC entered into a binding Advance Pricing Agreement in January 2013 (“the APA”). The APA was agreed for the express purpose of fixing the appropriate method for determining the taxable “compensation” attributable to the Appellants in the UK for a range of services which they provided to Thomson Reuters Global Resources (“TRGR”), a Thomson Reuters group company incorporated and tax resident in Switzerland, in the period 1 October 2008 to 31 December 2014 (“the APA Period”). The charge to DPT on the Appellants in this case arises because HMRC consider, in accordance with section 82(5) of the Finance Act 2015, that the “arm’s length price” for the services charged by the Appellants to TRGR requires an attribution of TRGR’s Intellectual Property (“IP”) Profits (including a one-time gain made on the sale of IP in 2018), by reason of the services provided by the Appellants from 2008-2018, being the period over which the divested IP was created (which includes the services provided in the APA Period). The Upper Tribunal dismissed the Appellants’ claim for judicial review, holding that the Notices were lawful in a public law sense. The Court of Appeal dismissed the Appellants’ appeal. The Appellants now appeal to the Supreme Court.

Date of issue

10 February 2025

Case origin

PTA

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