Robert Waterson explains why this defence has no place in claims involving issues of EU law.
The recent jurisprudence of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) on the question of recovery of unduly paid VAT and excise duty by an end consumer has undergone its first test in the UK courts in the ITC (Investment Trust Companies v HMRC [2012] EWHC 485 (CH)) case. The decision in ITC is interim since certain questions remain to be resolved after judgment is given in the FII case by the Supreme Court (Test Claimants in the FII Group Litigation v HMRC (No. 2) [2010] STC 1251) and the decision of the CJEU in Littlewoods C-591/10. One feature of the ITC decision is the use of...
