Legal challenge to Minimum Alcohol Pricing: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/17/02801
Date received: 17 November 2017
Date responded: 15 December 2017

Information requested

What was the cost to the public purse for the SWA to challenge MUP? All court fees attributed to SG, how of the finance was taken directly from the public purse. Any SG fees that SWA had to cover as a result of losing the case.

Response

I enclose a copy of the information you requested.

In relation to the Scotch Whisky Association's and others' legal challenge to the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act 2012, the legal outlays incurred by the Scottish Government during the court processes currently amount to £495,640 although this is not the final figure as some costs are still to be billed. These outlays were paid directly out of the Scottish Government Alcohol Policy Budget. The costs are detailed in the attached annex. They include costs for Senior Counsel (QC), Junior Counsel (advocate) and miscellaneous costs, including court fees. There were no external costs for solicitors' firms as any other legal work relating to the passage of the Alcohol (Minimum Pricing) (Scotland) Act 2012 was carried out by civil servants and there is no business need to record the time or cost of civil servants in completing their normal business duties. The Scottish Government is seeking to recover costs through the standard legal recovery process.

Annex

Legal outlays to date for minimum unit pricing policy
	Senior Counsel	Junior Counsel	Miscellaneous	Total
	£	£	£	£
2012-13	135,025	38,952	2,481	176,458
2013-14	48,300	31,338	-	79,638
2014-15	49,000	3,792	11,106	63,898
2015-16	44,400	5,508	1,116	51,024
2016-17	47,500	5,220	10,922	63,642
2017-18	50,000	10,140	840	60,980
Total	374,225	94,950	26,465	495,640

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