If a recommendation to overturn the original Commission ruling 2019/1352 and subsequent General Court decision is accepted by the CJEU, ITV and London Stock Exchange would not have to pay millions of pounds in tax to settle the long-running dispute over use of the controlled foreign company (CFC) rules, and the UK government’s use of controlled foreign company (CFC) rules would be clear as a legal tax approach.

Under the CFC rules only 25% of profits were taxable when applied to non-trading finance profits (NTFP) arising from qualifying loan relationships (QLRs), meaning that 75% of those profits were exempt from that charge.