Secret Hotels2 - U.K Supreme Court finds that a one-sided agency agreement favouring the dominant agent can still represent agency

A company ("Med") was found to provide bookings to its on-line customers at Mediterranean and Caribbean hotels as agent for the hotels (so that there was no U.K. VAT on its revenues) notwithstanding some significant departures from what one normally would expect to see in an agency arrangement – many of which Lord Neuberger attributed to Med’s superior negotiating position.  The point may be that if, in broad-brush terms, the arrangement was intended to be and was implemented as an agency arrangement, such departures do not necessarily detract from agency.

Neal Armstrong.  Summaries of Commissioners for HM Revenue and Customs v. Secret Hotels2 Ltd., [2014] UKSC 16 under General Concepts – Agency, and – Substance.