Weis v Greater Manchester Combined Authority [2025] CAT 41: second subsidy control challenge dismissed by the CAT

24/07/25

The Competition Appeal Tribunal (Chair Hodge Malek KC, Sir Iain McMillan CBE FRSE DL and Timothy Sawyer CBE) has dismissed the second application for review brought under section 70 of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (“the 2022 Act”) in a reserved judgment handed down on 24 July 2025 following a hearing on 27, 29 May and (remotely) 6 June 2023.

The applicant, Mr Aubrey Weis who operates a property development business under the trading name Combined Property Control based in the north west of England, alleged that the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (chaired by the Mayor of Greater Manchester, the Rt Hon Andy Burnham) in making two loans totalling some £120 million under the Greater Manchester Housing Investment Loans Fund in late 2024 was conferring a subsidy on the property developer recipient of those loans, Renaker. The loans are to invest in residential property development in central Manchester.

The Tribunal accepted the Authority’s case is that the Renaker loans do not confer any subsidy under the 2022 Act. The loans were made on commercial terms and thus, under section 3(2) of the 2022 Act, do not constitute financial assistance conferring any economic advantage on the loan recipients within the meaning of section 2(1)(b).

The judgment of Tribunal will be of interest to public authorities and their advisers because it is the first case considering the approach to the Commercial Markert Operator principle under the 2022 Act. Essentially, the Tribunal has chosen to follow the approach of the Court of Appeal under the preceding EU State aid regime under the EU market economy operator principle as set out in R (Sky Blue Sports) v Coventry City Council (No 1) [2016] EWCA Civ 453 and the interim subsidy control regime in place under prior to the entry into force of the 2022 Act set out in British Gas Trading v Secretary of State for Energy Security and Net Zero [2025] EWCA Civ 209.

Also likely to be of broader interest, the Tribunal took a wide interpretation of when a subsidy control decision is taken, for the purpose of permitting a challenge to be brought before the Tribunal. The Tribunal rejected the Authority’s submission that time only started running for the purposes of the 2022 Act when a legal entitlement to funding had arisen. This expands the scope for bringing challenges to proposed subsidies before the Tribunal.

The judgment can be found here.