Dublin landlord Paul Howard has lost his Supreme Court appeal over a €2.4m judgment, including interest, obtained by the Revenue Commissioners against him for unpaid taxes.The five-judge court on Wednesday also dismissed an appeal by Howard’s partner, Una McClean, over a similar judgment against her for €625,513. The core issue in the appeals centred on the legality of an “uplift” fee arrangement in debt collection cases between the Revenue and a panel of solicitors. After an earlier appeal over the High Court judgments granted against them was rejected, Howard and McClean, of Larkfield Avenue, Harold’s Cross, Dublin 6, secured a further limited appeal to the Supreme Court focused on the lawfulness of the contractual arrangement.Both argued the arrangement was not lawful, with the effect that the Revenue case against them could not be maintained. The Attorney General and Law Society of Ireland were involved in the appeals as amici curiae, assistants to the court on legal issues. Judge Gerard Hogan, who delivered the court’s unanimous judgment, held that the contractual arrangements between the Revenue and the solicitors’ panel were not unlawful.While the arrangement would clearly have been “champertous” [an illegal arrangement where a third party with no interest in a dispute funds it in exchange for a share of the proceeds] at common law, it was rendered lawful because it fell within an exception in relation to actions to recover a debt or other liquidated sum, the judge held.Section 15 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 prevents a solicitor charging a percentage fee in respect of damages or other monies that may be recoverable on behalf of a client but it exempts actions that seek only to recover a debt or other liquidated demand, he said.On what the judge stressed was a “strictly obiter” (non-binding) basis, he said the contractual arrangements, insofar as they provided for a form of “no foal, no fee” costs arrangement, were not unlawful.The clear balance of legal authorities before 1922 was that “no foal, no fee” arrangements of this kind were lawful and this was carried forward into the 1922 Constitution of the Irish Free State and the 1937 Constitution, he said.The practice of “no foal, no fee” arrangements is widespread and “inveterate” in the Irish legal system and the population has acted on the basis of the legality of the practice, he said.Any concerns against possible abuse of the “no foal, no fee” system must be balanced against the fact that the legal aid system in civil cases “cannot possibly meet the range of unmet demand”, he said. If the constitutional right of access to the courts is to be made effective, then an existing practice whereby people of modest means can obtain access to justice “should not lightly be held to be unlawful”, he said.This practice did not amount to unlawful champerty in Irish law, the court ruled. The contractual provisions in question “are not champertous or otherwise unlawful”, the court concluded.[ Landlord Paul Howard told Revenue he kept rent money at home in cashOpens in new window ]The challenges arose from a clause concerning remuneration structure in a January 2020 contract between Revenue and Ivor Fitzpatrick & Company Solicitors, one of six firms on a panel retained by Revenue for collection of unpaid taxes.Howard and McClean argued the clause amounted to a contingency fee arrangement which provided that the solicitors remuneration was only paid if sums allegedly due to the Collector General were realised. The clause was deleted under an amendment agreement made in February 2023 between Revenue and the Fitzpatrick firm.