Weis v Greater Manchester Combined Authority [2026] EWCA Civ 825: first Subsidy Control Act appeal dismissed by the Court of Appeal

29/06/26

The Court of Appeal (Nugee, Zacaroli and Miles LJJ) has dismissed the first appeal against an application for review brought under section 70 of the Subsidy Control Act 2022 (“the 2022 Act”) before the Competition Appeal Tribunal (“CAT”) in a judgment handed down on 29 June 2026 following a hearing on 9-10 June 2026.

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 at the time by the then 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 investing in residential property development in central Manchester.

The CAT had rejected Mr Weis’ application in July 2025 ([2025] CAT 41) and accepted the Authority’s case that the Renaker loans did not confer any subsidy under the 2022 Act. The CAT agreed with the Authority that the loans were made on commercial market operator (“CMO”) terms and thus, under section 3(2) of the 2022 Act, did not constitute financial assistance conferring any economic advantage on the loan recipients within the meaning of section 2(1)(b) of the 2022 Act.

Mr Weis’ appeal to the Court of Appeal (permission having been given by Zacaroli LJ on 27 October 2025) was also unsuccessful. Zacaroli LJ, giving the Court’s judgment, upheld the approach of the CAT to determine for itself, applying the CMO principle, whether the loans constituted a subsidy under the 2022 Act.

The judgment is here