The Court of Appeal has handed down judgment in Aubrey Weis v Greater Manchester Combined Authority [2026] EWCA Civ 825.
The proceedings concern a challenge under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (the Act) to £120 million of loans given by Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA), under the leadership of Andy Burnham.
In an important judgment, the Court of Appeal has: (i) reversed various conclusions of the CAT and substantially upheld Mr Weis’s claims that GMCA’s decision-making process related to the loans had been vitiated by material breaches of public law duty, but (ii) held that Mr Weis’s appeal must be dismissed because: (a) on its true construction, the Act provided that it was a matter for the CAT itself to determine objectively whether or not the loans gave rise to a “subsidy” within the meaning of the Act, (b) the CAT had made findings, in terms that were not (and could not) be impugned, that the loans did not constitute subsidies, and (c) it followed that there was no “subsidy decision” within the meaning of the Act and that the CAT had no jurisdiction in respect of Mr Weis’s public law claims, such that those claims must fail.
A copy of the judgment can be found here:
Joseph Barrett KC and Oliver Jackson represent the Appellant, Mr Aubrey Weis, instructed by Walker Morris LLP.
