Every year the senior courts issue thousands of judgments, which our reporters assess for their legal significance as precedents. Only a few hundred are selected for reporting, and that is because they change or clarify the law in some way. While the other judgments are published, and may be of interest for various other reasons, they do not merit selection as precedents.

In this short series of commentaries reporters from the different divisions at ICLR have chosen a case that they believe truly changed the legal landscape in 2024.

In the below piece Catherine May, who sits in our KB and Family reporting team, assesses the impact of R (L1T FM Holdings UK Ltd) v Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster in the Cabinet Office [2024] EWHC 2963 (Admin); [2024] WLR(D) 540, on the use of the National Security and Investment Act 2021 –

In this first judicial review of a decision made under the National Security and Investment Act 2021, the Secretary of State (“SoS”) “called in” L1T’s purchase of the entire shareholding of a start-up “Upp Corporation Ltd” (which was rolling out full fibre broadband in the east of England) which he reasonably suspected had given or could give rise to a national security risk. Risk assessments were made by the Investment Security Unit in consultation with other government departments. Explaining that the risks related to Upp’s indirect ownership by the ultimate beneficial owners of L1T ‘s parent company, two of whom were Russian nationals under sanctions, the SoS invited the claimants’ solicitors to make representations. The SoS’s final order required L1T to divest itself of 100% of its shareholding.

The key findings in this dismissed claim were:

(1) there was no express consultation duty in the Act, only a requirement to consider representations made and to be fair. Nor was it necessary to imply such a duty here. Whether the procedural provisions of the 2021 Act could ever be supplemented by the common law is a question for another case.

(2) Nor did the Act require consideration of less draconian powers under the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, data protection and other electronic and telecommunications security legislation.

(3) As to the alleged infringement of the claimants’ Convention right to peaceful enjoyment of their possessions, the SoS had struck a fair balance between the claimants’ individual rights and the wider public interest when making the final order, applying the principle of proportionality as a condition of making a final order, in light of his officials’ and lawyers’ advice.

Catherine May, Solicitor

Featured image: Security, via Pixabay