David (instructed by Sanjay Panesar of Rainer Hughes) appeared for Hare Wines in a successful challenge to HMRC’s decision to refuse it approval under the Alcohol Wholesalers Registration Scheme (AWRS). The Tribunal found that the decision was one that HMRC could not reasonably have arrived at. This was the second such success for Hares Wines (with HMRC having withdrawn an earlier adverse AWRS decision following critical comments made by the Court of Appeal in relation to the decision-making process). This case was all the more interesting because Hare Wines did not call any factual evidence and instead focused on undermining HMRC’s case by way of cross-examination and submissions.
The full decision can be found here.
