L1T FM Holdings UK Ltd, R (on the application of) & Anor v Secretary of State in the Cabinet Office

In closed-material judicial review proceedings, open versions of documents must be presented in a form that does not mislead claimants about their provenance or contents. Plain-paper versions, with appropriate general markings, will ordinarily suffice. There is no general requirement for marginal annotations identifying every redaction or gist. Further annotation is required only where necessary to prevent a real risk of misunderstanding and where it can be given without risking national security.

Names of civil servants cannot be redacted routinely on grounds of relevance or generalised security concerns. A redaction requires a specific and evidentially supported reason. The court accepted redaction of certain GCHQ and NCA officers where the evidence established a national-security risk.

The claimants challenged a decision under the National Security and Investment Act 2021 requiring the First Claimant to sell its shareholding in UPP Corporation Ltd. The proceedings involved a closed-material procedure under the Justice and Security Act 2013.

The judgment determined applications concerning the form and annotation of open versions of closed documents, further disclosure, and redaction of civil servants’ names. The central issues were whether the disclosure format risked misleading the claimants and whether the proposed redactions were justified.

1. Open documents. The court held that the relevant obligation under CPR 82.14(10), imposed by section 8(1)(c) of the Justice and Security Act 2013, is to use only the disclosure format necessary to avoid damage to national security. Where possible, open material should be provided in plain-paper form and marked to show that it contains redactions or gisted material. Documents should not be made to appear to be the originals seen by the decision-maker.
2. The form of disclosure may be considered for prejudice as well as national security. The existence of a closed procedure already impairs a claimant’s ability to pursue a claim, but that impairment should not exceed what is required to protect national security. In this case, the amended index and proposed document markings sufficiently removed the risk of misunderstanding, so the documents did not need to be remade.
3. There is no general requirement for marginal notes identifying each redaction or gist. Annotation may be appropriate where an unmarked document could mislead the claimant, provided the annotation itself does not risk revealing sensitive information. The possibility of misunderstanding must be assessed within sensible bounds, and further marginal annotation will generally be exceptional.
4. The application to redact the names of civil servants outside the Senior Civil Service failed. General relevance arguments had already failed in R(IAB) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, and the evidence identified no specific national-security reason requiring all such names to be withheld.
5. The court accepted the alternative application concerning GCHQ officers working in the National Cyber Security Centre and certain NCA officers. The schedules supplied sufficiently specific reasons why disclosure of those identities could prejudice national security. No further disclosure was ordered.

Not an appeal. The judgment records that an earlier decision in R(IAB) v Secretary of State for the Home Department was refused at first instance and that the appeal was dismissed.