LEGAL DEVELOPMENTS

Welcome to the autumn edition of Construction and Engineering Matters. Legal developments affecting the industry have continued at a pace over the last few months.

In this edition, we look at some of the cases you need to know about and highlight some important employment and intellectual property issues impacting on our industry.

RECENT CASE LAW - AN UPDATE

Construction Industry Scheme

Woods (HMIT) v Light Power Limited was decided by the High Court in June. The local Tax Inspector (Woods) had refused Light Power’s application under Section 561 of the Income and Corporation Taxes Act 1988 for renewal of its CIS Certificate, but the General Commissioners reversed this decision on appeal. The appeal decision was subsequently appealed by HMIT as it felt that Light Power had failed to comply with its statutory obligations under the Scheme.

The High Court found that the history of non-compliance by Light Power was not “minor and technical”. Light Power’s payment record over the “qualifying period” revealed that all payments were late by more than 14 days, and the evidence and findings of fact by the General Commissioners did nothing to dispel the doubt that there would not be future non-compliance by Light Power. Accordingly, renewal of Light Power’s CIS Certificate was quashed.

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