EE Limited & Hutchison 3G UK Limited v Duncan (Appeal)

On 7th May 2021, the Inner House of the Court of Session handed down its judgement in EE Limited & Hutchison 3G UK Limited v Duncan, the first appeal court decision in Scotland on the new Electronic Communications Code, with the operators successfully challenging the Lands Tribunal’s earlier ruling in favour of the landowners.

As covered in our previous blog, the case concerned applications brought by the operators to terminate existing leases, which had passed their contractual expiry dates, and to replace them with new agreements under the new Code. Part 5 of the Code provides a mechanism for the parties to modify a ‘code agreement’ at, or after, the expiry of the contractual term. In dismissing their applications, the Lands Tribunal concluded that the operators had not sufficiently made out a case for the orders sought.

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