Investment firm BlueCrest Capital Management (UK) LLP has unanimously lost an £200m appeal at the Supreme Court over the tax status of self-employed partners.

In what has been a drawn-out dispute, the ruling has ended one of the most high-profile tax disputes of recent times, with the court dismissing BlueCrest’s argument that its partners were in fact self-employed, and not subject to the same tax as employees.

The long running argument with HMRC concerned the amount of tax payable on earnings from a partner incentivisation plan (PIP) used by the firm from 2008 to 2014.