Court of Appeal: Judgment upholds High Court’s ruling dismissing judicial review claim regarding expansion of Heathrow Airport, but ‘unable to endorse’ competition analysis

Article summary

On the 27 February 2020, the Court of Appeal handed down a judgment in The Queen on the application of Heathrow Hub Limited & Anr v The Secretary of State for Transport & Ors, an appeal against the High Court’s ruling of 1 May 2019 which concerned one of numerous claims for judicial review against Heathrow Airport Limited’s (HAL) government-backed program to build a third runway to the north west of the current runways (the NWR Scheme). By way of background, the above application concerned a claim by two undertaking’s which promoted an alternative scheme to the NWR Scheme; ie the Extended Northern Runway Scheme (the ENR Scheme). One of the grounds raised by these undertaking’s focussed on competition law issues. In essence, the claimants submitted that the Secretary of State breached EU competition law by insisting that HAL provided a guarantee or assurance...