Prada Contract Services Ltd v The Pensions Regulator

The Appellant, Prada Contract Services Ltd, lodged their appeal using the GRC1 form on 19 December 2024. Their appeal was incomplete as they did not provide a copy of the “Pensions – right to appeal” form. Without this form, it is not clear if they have a right of appeal. They also failed to complete Section 9 of the GRC1 form (specifying if they wanted their appeal to be decided with or without a hearing).

By Directions and Email issued on 15^th January 2025, the Appellant was required to provide a copy of the “Pensions – right to appeal” form and to complete section 9 of the GRC1 form within 28 days. They did not comply.

By Directions and Email issued on 24^th March 2025, the Appellant was again required to provide a copy of the “Pensions – right to appeal” form and to complete Section 9 of the GRC1 form, by no later than 7^rd April 2025. These directions specifically stated “The Appellant is asked to note that failure to comply with the direction above could lead to the Tribunal striking out this appeal for failure to comply pursuant to Rule 8(3)(a) of the Tribunal Procedure (First-tier Tribunal) (General Regulatory Chamber) Rules 2009 without further direction.

Under Rule 8(3), the Tribunal may strike out a case where:

I find that the test under Rule 8(3)(a) is met: in that the Appellant has failed to comply with a direction which stated that failure to comply could lead to the striking out of the proceedings. The Appeal is struck out for this reason.

I further conclude that the test under Rule 8(3)(b) is met: in that the Appellant has failed to co-operate with the Tribunal (by failing to provide a copy of the “Pensions – right to appeal” form) to such an extent that the Tribunal cannot deal with the proceedings fairly or justly. The Appeal is also struck out for this reason.

The overriding objective in Rule 2 of the Procedure Rules requires the Tribunal to deal with cases fairly and justly. For completeness, I add that I find it is fair and just to strike out the proceedings. The Appellant has now had almost 5 months to abide by this very simply direction. They have failed to do so. They have not provided any explanation for the failure and have not requested further time.