The Court of Appeal’s ruling in PGMOL: seven lessons on mutuality of obligation

On 17 September 2021 the Court of Appeal handed down its much-awaited decision in the case of HMRC v Professional Game Match Officials Ltd. Having lost before the FTT and UT HMRC succeeded in persuading the Court of Appeal that the FTT erred in law in its approach to the question of mutuality of obligation in the referees’ match by match contracts. But the question remains: what constitutes sufficient mutuality of obligation for the purposes of the Ready Mixed Concrete test? Rather than tackling that question head-on the court remitted the case to the FTT to determine this as well as a separate point about control. But as things stand HMRC would not be correct to argue that there is sufficient mutuality of obligation just because there has been payment for work done; the content and extent of the mutual obligations will still be...