A company unsuccessfully appealed against the High Court’s refusal of a judicial review application following HMRC’s refusal to delete work product derived from material provided by the company pursuant to an information notice.

In November 2012, HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) served what they considered to be an information notice on a company (PML) (pursuant to FA 2008, Sch 36, para 1). HMRC did not consider the response to be a proper compliance and levied an initial penalty and then daily penalties.

PML appealed. The First-tier Tribunal (FTT) ([2015] UKFTT 440 (TC)) held that the information notice was invalid, and the penalties were therefore not enforceable, as the FTT considered that it related to the tax position of PML's clients (for which a third-party notice would be necessary) and not PML itself. The FTT noted that it had no power to require HMRC to return the documents provided by PML pursuant to the notice but expressed the opinion