Quarter 1_2018_1_High Court Order
High Court decision in respect of Pubs Code arbitration.
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The PCA’s March 2018 statutory advice note addressed the question of the form of a Market Rent Only (MRO) compliant tenancy. It made clear that a MRO proposal does not have to be in the form of a new tenancy. It also stated that the terms of the MRO proposal do not have to be the same as the tied tenancy, but that they do have to be reasonable.
As part of the PCA’s transparency agenda, the PCA is publishing an order of the High court where the court considered whether to allow an appeal from an arbitration decision by the PCA that there is no requirement for a MRO compliant tenancy to be in the form of a new agreement. The court in that case refused the pub-owning business concerned leave to appeal the PCA’s decision on that issue.
The pub-owning business asked for leave to appeal the arbitration award on grounds which included that the Pubs Code required a proposed MRO compliant tenancy to be offered by way of a new agreement only. The court considered that the PCA’s decision on this point had been ‘neither obviously wrong nor seriously open to question’.
The court additionally found that there was force in the PCA’s conclusion that there is nothing in the Pubs Code to suggest that a proposed MRO compliant tenancy can only be offered by way of a new tenancy and not by way of a deed of variation of the existing tenancy.