Mennolly Homes Limited has been ordered to pay the Revenue Commissioners’ full costs of its judicial review, including any reserved costs, after the High Court rejected the company’s arguments in an earlier judgment.
In a supplemental judgment delivered on 9 March 2010, Mr Justice Charleton considered the parties’ submissions on costs. The company argued that Revenue should receive only part of its costs, saying the earlier ruling clarified important points about the Appeal Commissioners’ jurisdiction in VAT and other tax appeals.
Revenue submitted that the case was a large commercial judicial review, rather than proceedings brought in the general public interest, and that costs should follow the outcome. It also raised concerns about the lateness of issues argued before the Appeal Commissioners and whether review of the initial tax assessment should have been brought six years earlier. The judge described those points as supplemental.
The court had found against the company on all arguments in the judicial review in its 26 February 2010 judgment. In deciding costs, Mr Justice Charleton followed the approach in an earlier High Court decision, Veolia Water v Fingal County Council [2006] IEHC 240. He said each side had advanced arguments in its own specific interests, and that neither party’s motivation was to clarify public law. He saw no basis to depart from the principles in that decision.
The ruling concerns costs only. It awards Revenue the full costs of the judicial review, including reserved costs; it does not set out a new decision on the underlying tax assessment.