Cemex UK Operations Limited v Secretary of State for Transport
Decision date: 2 May 2025
Neutral citation: [2025] UKUT 138 (LC)
Overall AI summary confidence: high
Short overview
This short overview is intended to summarise the case, issues and outcome so far as they are supported by the judgment.
AI confidence in this short overview: high
This interim Upper Tribunal decision addresses Cemex's compensation claim for loss of profits after HS2’s compulsory acquisition of its Washwood Heath sleeper factory, focusing on past and future Network Rail (NR) sleeper requirements, stockpile composition, market share and pricing. The Tribunal made factual findings—including an adjusted NR stockpile of about 820,000 sleepers, understated NR requirements for 2017–20 by ~225,000, adopted future requirement profiles through CP9, and found Cemex would have had a 50% market share in the no‑scheme P3 period—and remitted calculation of monetary loss to forensic accountants with a further hearing listed.
Ratio decidendi
This summary is intended to identify the ratio decidendi, meaning the legal reasons for deciding and the binding part of the decision.
AI confidence in this ratio decidendi summary: medium
The Tribunal treated physical stock counts reconciled with withdrawals as reliable corrective evidence where supplier records were inconsistent, and it set a practicable forecasting horizon (to 2036) beyond which future trading could not be reliably predicted for valuation purposes, directing accountants to model cashflows only to that date.
Obiter dicta
This summary is intended to identify obiter dicta, meaning observations made by the way that were not necessary to deciding the case and are not binding.
AI confidence in this obiter dicta summary: medium
The Tribunal indicated that persuasive weight may be given to reliable expert recollection when contemporaneous procurement documents are inconsistent, and that assumed procurement terms (the SAFI) can constrain what would have been offered in a no‑scheme world—affecting whether contractual features like minimum guaranteed volumes would have been included.