Public loans worth £140 million were awarded to a Manchester skyscraper developer based on a 'flawed and unlawful' decision, the Court of Appeal has heard. The cash was loaned to property firm Renaker, the company behind some of the city centre's luxury high-rise towers, which was founded by Daren Whitaker.
A Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) committee agreed in March 2024 to dish out the cash for Renaker's schemes at Trinity Islands, by Trinity Way on the River Irwell, and New Jackson, next to Deansgate Square. This pumped the cash into special purpose vehicles (SPVs), with an agreement to give £70.8 million to the Trinity Islands development and £69.2 million to New Jackson, with money coming from the Greater Manchester Housing Investment Loans Fund (GMHILF). The total amount loaned later dropped to around £120 million.
The GMCA committee is chaired by Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, who is Labour's candidate in the Makerfield by-election on June 18. But the GMCA has faced legal challenges from wealthy landowner Aubrey Weis over its decision to loan the cash to Renaker. At the heart of the case is a question whether the loans given to Renaker were made 'at unduly favourable rates' by the GMCA, and could have given Renaker an economic advantage.
Previous Tribunal Ruling
A case was heard at the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) last year, which ruled in the GMCA's favour. The CAT found it was 'clearly not the case' that the loans were made at favourable rates, and that there was 'no subsidy' involved. The Weis Group was granted permission to appeal the CAT's decision, sparking a hearing in the Court of Appeal on June 9 and 10 this week. The appeal is being held before Lord Justice Nugee, Lord Justice Zacaroli and Lord Justice Miles.
Alleged 'Advantageous Treatment'
Court papers submitted by lawyers representing Aubrey Weis claimed that the loans and 'advantageous treatment' towards Renaker by the GMCA have 'distorted the proper and fair operation of the market'. At the hearing on Tuesday (June 9), Joseph Barrett KC, for Aubrey Weis, said: 'We respectfully submit that the decision was flawed and unlawful on various public law grounds, and we feel that the tribunal's judgements not upholding those grounds was vitiated by material errors of law.'
Written submissions to the court from Mr Weis' lawyers said the loans to Renaker came with a base interest rate of 5.65 per cent, with an extra one per cent margin. But they argued that the extra margin should have been higher, at four percent. Mr Barrett said in court: 'Neither the decision maker, nor any officer involved in this process, ever inquired into or considered what pricing and terms would be available to the SPVs on the market for private commercial lenders.
'Second, one consequence of that failure, is that both before the CAT, and now this court, there is a significant evidential void or gap on that important question.'
Court papers claimed that a meeting took place between a 'senior officer' at the GMCA and Daren Whitaker in February 2024, but that 'no minutes or notes of the meeting exist' of what was discussed. Mr Barrett said in court that the GMCA had received 'no advice whatsoever as to whether the loans were at market rates' and did 'not give any consideration to that issue'.
He also claimed 'no due diligence was ever conducted into Mr Whitaker's liabilities or credit worthiness', and that the loans were made on 'what was obviously an unlawful basis'. Mr Barrett added: 'It cannot be right that a public authority is making a lending decision of up to £140m of public money effectively relying on someone's creditworthiness, without having obtained any information about their creditworthiness.'
He said there were 'serious errors of law' in the CAT's judgement last year, and urged the Court of Appeal to apply 'close scrutiny' of the decision.
GMCA's Defence
Aidan Robertson KC, for the GMCA, said in his written submission there had been 'no error of law' in the CAT's reasoning. He explained that there was a 'whole due diligence process' carried out over how the decision to loan the money was made. He said: 'Until that had been carried out to the authority's satisfaction, execution of the loans could not take place. As the authority explained to the tribunal, loans can, and do, fail to proceed to completion after reaching the GMCA committee stage.
'There is simply no good reason only to take the GMCA committee decision into consideration. The tribunal did not err in law by considering the whole process.'
Mr Robertson added in court: 'The idea that this was somehow one official agreeing the rates and that was it, is completely, factually, wrong.' He also accused Mr Weis' representatives at the Court of Appeal hearing of 'rerunning' the same arguments it had made in the CAT hearing in 2025. Mr Robertson said: 'It is little more than an attempt to rerun arguments that did not find favour with the tribunal, rerunning them today in the Court of Appeal does not make them errors of law.'
He also referenced the CAT's decision that there was 'no subsidy' involved in the loans. Mr Robertson added: 'Our submission is that it's an objective assessment as to whether something is a subsidy or not, and that is ultimately a question to be adjudicated upon by the tribunal.'
The case continues on June 10 at the Court of Appeal.
