The CJEU on the UK’s group relief rules and EU law

A CJEU judgment has rejected a challenge to the UK group relief legislation, following on from the Marks and Spencer litigation. HMRC may argue that it prevents all cross-border group relief claims, except for foreign losses which were evidently – immediately after the end of the accounting period – unusable. This judgment does limit claims for time expired losses. It will also at least delay settlement of claims for terminal losses where it only became evident at a later stage that the losses were terminal. But that part of the judgment is arguably narrow and may not do what HMRC will hope.