R (on the application of Privacy International) v Revenue and Customs Commissioners [2014] EWHC 1475 (Admin), [2014] All ER (D) 83 (May)
The issue in the case concerned the powers and duties of the defendant Revenue and Customs Commissioners to disclose information about its export control functions to the claimant non-governmental organisation, Privacy International. The court ruled (inter alia) that there was no discrete or freestanding function of the Revenue to provide information to third parties. However, it was not exempt from disclosure under s 18(2) of the Commissioners for Revenue and Customs Act 2005 if and insofar as it met the test therein. Further, the Revenue’s margin of appreciation could not be uniformly categorised. In some circumstances it might be materially or even very substantially circumscribed, in other cases it might be relatively broad. The outcome might differ depending upon the status of the person seeking information and the type and nature of information sought. It might also be temporally contingent, in that a wide-ranging request for detailed information at the outset of an investigation might be much easier to refuse than a modest request made later
