CJEU decision on Transnational Group Relief foreign losses against UK profits  The text of the decision of the CJEU can be found here:

European readers may wish to note that this is a repercussion of the Marks & Spencer litigation in transnational Group Relief (EU:C:2005:763). United Kingdom Group Relief is not the same schematic as a tax integration or a tax consolidation. It is merely making  tax losses of one company, here foreign,  available for offset against the taxable profits of another company in the same group, here in the UK.  Whence the perceived need for certainty as to the amount and to the irrecoverabilty of the losses against later foreign profit.

The application failed on the basis that the Commission had failed to prove certain aspects, which may mean that the embers may still give rise to the odd "sparkle", even, after Christmas. In fact, the availability of foreign losse of a foreign subsidiary against UK Corporation Tax is still a hot potato cooking in those ashes.

In effect the UK managed to evidence that it was still possible to claim Cross Border Group Relief, provided that the losses of the foreign subsidiary were definitive. It was that issue of proof upon which one of the Commission's heads of argument failed.

HMRC in effect submitted that once the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom had held that HMRC's previous interpretation of the CTA Statute was wrong, the provision and the law was effectively rendered certain. Turning a defeat into a form of victory, or in fact establishing a precedent to be hammered with at a later date?