George Peretz KC

A Court of Appeal judge recently told me that they would never look at SCOTUS authority because it was too politically-driven to have any value as jurisprudence. Harsh but fair, I think.

Obviously only works for sites that depend on users paying: gambling, porn (?). But a tool in the armoury?

Would one answer be to make any credit card debt owed by a UK consumer paying for services by such providers unenforceable by the credit card company? The credit card companies would then have to block use of their cards by UK residents on offending sites.

On Ofcom’s difficulty in enforcing fines against overseas companies operating websites without proper age filters: and indeed enforcement of UK against overseas providers of online services to the UK who break UK law generally (tax; regulation).

What Britain looks like after Brexit You’re reading Reaction.

I just re-read this gem by Lord Hannan. It has been a few years since I looked at it.
Incredible Stuff.
The myopia is one thing.
But the way literally every global development has been misjudged.
Amazing. www.reaction.life/p/britain-lo...

Betting on tax avoidance - is Sky Bet avoiding £55m tax per year? ITV News has just published an investigation: gambling company Sky Bet has migrated its business to Malta to avoid around £55m of tax each year. We provided technical support for the investigation…

Our new report on Sky Bet's relocation to Malta. Full details of what we think they did, whether it was legal, and how HMRC and the Government could stop it: taxpolicy.org.uk/2025/11/18/s...

Touché.

Thanks. I did wonder whether @joshuarozenberg.bsky.social was right in his assumption that he would have a plausible case for significant damages in Florida.

There is, after all, the risk of a dangerous precedent here. The BBC will often offend foreign leaders - some worse than Trump. Sometimes it will make factual mistakes in reporting on them. Yield to Trump now, and who next?

(At least to the extent he’s seeking more than a formal apology limited to the obvious mistake and a very modest offer of compensation.)

Arkell v Pressdram [1971] In April 1971, Private Eye carried the story of how James Arkell, a retail credit manager, had dispensed with the services of two bailiffs who were on bail on charges of conspiracy to create a publ…

So at the moment, despite @joshuarozenberg.bsky.social’s piece, I wonder whether a better BBC response would be the Arkell v Pressdram one. proftomcrick.com/2014/04/29/a...

Or presumably even a nominal award if a judge - plausibly - decided that any falsity didn’t actually damage his reputation (given that his role in the 6 January events is pretty well established eg by the Congressional inquiry).

(I’m not a defamation lawyer, but it seems pretty obvious that any case brought here would result in at best a modest award.)

A question not asked by Joshua, but which seems quite important, is whether any judgment by a Florida court (assuming as Joshua does that it would assert jurisdiction) would be enforceable here. Any views?

See also ⬇️ bsky.app/profile/geor...

ARTICLE 9 Customs Duties and Charges On arriving in the territory of one Party, aircraft operated in international air transportation by the airlines of the other Party, their regular equipment, ground equipment, fuel, lubricants, consumable technical supplies, spare parts (including engines), aircraft stores (including but not limited to such items of food, beverages and liquor, tobacco, and other products destined for sale to or use by passengers in limited quantities during flight), and other items intended for or used solely in connection with the operation or servicing of aircraft engaged in international air transportation shall be exempt, on the basis of reciprocity, from all import restrictions, property taxes and capital levies, customs duties, excise taxes, and similar fees and charges that are (a) imposed by the national authorities, and (b) not based on the cost of services provided, provided that such equipment and supplies remain on board the aircraft. There shall also be exempt, on the basis of reciprocity, from the taxes, levies, duties, fees, and charges referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article, with the exception of charges based on the cost of the service provided: aircraft stores introduced into or supplied in the territory of a Party and taken on board, within reasonable limits, for use on outbound aircraft of an airline of the other Party engaged in international air transportation, even when these stores are to be used on a part of the journey performed over the territory of the Party in which they are taken on board; b ground equipment and spare parts (including engines) introduced into the territory of a Party for the servicing, maintenance, or repair of aircraft of an airline of the other Party used in international air transportation; fuel, lubricants, and consumable technical supplies introduced into or supplied in the territory of a Party for use in an aircraft of an airline of the other Party engaged in international air transportatio…

But also note the fact that various UK/3rd country air services agreements also prevent the UK from taxing fuel supplied to that country’s aircraft (and vice versa). See eg Article 9 of the UK/US Air Transport Agreement. assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60ae4a...

The Chicago Convention doesn’t though preclude taxation in country A of fuel supplied to passenger aircraft in country A: it’s other bilateral treaties that do that (and in the EU and Northern Ireland, EU law).

(It is not often appreciated how much UK indirect tax policy is in practice constrained by the fact that NI is still, with limited exceptions, governed by the excise duty directives and, in goods, by the VAT Directives.)

Important too to note that Northern Ireland is still governed, in this respect, by EU law (Article 8 of, and Annex 3 to, the Windsor Framework, the latter of which lists the excise duty directives). So any GB tax on airline fuel couldn’t extend to NI.

Labour and the ECHR The (slightly tidied-up) text of a speech I gave to the Labour Movement for Europe rally at Labour Conference on 28 September

A bit late but a tidied up text of a short speech I gave to the @labour4europe.bsky.social rally at Labour Conference.
open.substack.com/pub/georgepe...

Labour and the ECHR The (slightly tidied-up) text of a speech I gave to the Labour Movement for Europe rally at Labour Conference on 28 September

A bit late but a tidied up text of a short speech I gave to the @labour4europe.bsky.social rally at Labour Conference.
open.substack.com/pub/georgepe...

Judicial Power’s 50 “problematic” cases and the limits of the judicial role The Judicial Power Project has published a list of 50 “problematic” cases. It makes for interesting reading. The aim of the Judicial Power Project is to address the “problem” of “judicial overreach…

I wrote a short piece on their '50 problematic cases' (publiclawforeveryone.com/2016/05/09/a...) and also a response to John Finnis's lecture that (I think) launched the JPP (publiclawforeveryone.com/2015/11/05/j...)

I agree about that, on the trade union cases. And they do to be fair find the actual decision in Liversidge to be “problematic” rather than Atkin’s dissent. But the comments on the early public law cases (Anisminic; Tameside) are rather indicative.

The Case of Proclamations In what turned out to be a landmark case concerning the Royal Prerogative, Sir Edward Coke (the Chief Justice of Common Pleas) was asked to express his opinion as to whether the monarch could prohibit...

I don’t *think* that the Case on Proclamations is one of the “problematic cases” but I suspect the JPP would like to have a go at it if it could. www.lawteacher.net/cases/the-ca...

I think lots of people have had a go. @profmarkelliott.bsky.social might know a good one. What is extraordinary is how far back the “problematic cases” go: the JPP is hostile to cases that are on any view *common law* developments on enforcing legal norms on the executive.

Link to the full judgment here. www.judiciary.uk/judgments/ar...

Right wing ECHR sceptics might though want to consider whether they really want to scrap a protection against populist (left or right) moves to confiscate, or take with obviously inadequate compensation, the property of unpopular minorities.

Theoretical concerns about the potential impact of Article 1 of Protocol 1 or other ECHR provisions on such matters as nationalisation or taxation are not grounded in much, if any, case-law. The recent judgment in ALR and others v Chancellor of the Exchequer dismissing attempts to secure a declaration that the ECHR is inconsistent with the extension of VAT to private school fees - an attempt that no expert that I am aware of thought had any real chance of success - demonstrates how implausible such concerns generally are. It may also be noted that the main practical objection to nationalisation with no or inadequate compensation, the concrete example that tends to be provided, is not so much Article 1, Protocol 1, of the ECHR as the fact that it would amount to a huge "do not invest here" signal to the foreign investment on which any plausible UK economic strategy depends: and that even the concern, also sometimes raised, that the ECHR would prevent the abolition of private schools - a point which, as the High Court observed in ALR, at [591, is likely to be right in relation to a legal prohibition - does not as a matter of practical policy survive the empirical observation that, in many European countries, private education has largely withered away as a result of other social democratic education policies that run into no ECHR objections.

Another judgment confirming that the ECHR is no barrier to interference with property rights that strike a fair balance, with a wide margin of discretion. As I argued here, attempts to claim that the ECHR is incompatible with democratic socialism are hapless. ukconstitutionallaw.org/2025/07/10/g...

Judgment on attempt by landlords to get a declaration that reforms to leasehold enfranchisement legislation infringe Art 1 Protocol 1 ECHR. As the judgment is long most will just want to read the official summary. www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/u...

Don’t get me onto the tax treatment of stakes.