The Supreme Court gave judgment on 27 July 2026 in a case on whether a civil penalty notice must state why an employer is liable for employing a worker without permission to work.
[2026] UKSC 26 is an employer right-to-work case under section 15 of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006. It is not a sponsor licence revocation case.
The judgment is Akbars Restaurant (Middlesborough) Limited v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] UKSC 26, given by the Supreme Court on 27 July 2026. It was heard on 27 January 2026 on appeal from [2024] EWCA Civ 1387. Lord Sales gave the judgment, and Lord Richards, Lord Leggatt, Lady Rose and Lady Simler agreed.
The question. Section 15(6)(a) of the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act 2006 says a penalty notice must "state why the Secretary of State thinks the employer is liable to the penalty". The appeal asked whether a notice meets that requirement when it lists every ground in section 15(1) without saying which one applies.
The facts. Immigration officers inspected the appellant's restaurant in Middlesbrough on 15 January 2023 and found one worker whose leave to remain had expired. The Secretary of State issued a civil penalty notice for £15,000 on 13 March 2023. It set out all the options in section 15(1). It did not say which one applied.
The appellant objected, and the Secretary of State upheld the penalty on 26 April 2023. The appellant appealed to the county court on 12 May 2023. The Secretary of State later said the notice was issued under section 15(1)(b)(iii) and then that both section 15(1)(b)(ii) and (iii) applied. The evidence she filed on 21 July 2023 was that the worker's leave had expired.
The lower courts. HHJ Gargan dismissed the appeal in the county court. The Court of Appeal also dismissed it. Zacaroli LJ held that the notice must be read as a whole and that section 15(6)(a) does not require the Secretary of State to identify the limb of section 15(1) relied on.
The Supreme Court's reasoning. Lord Sales agreed that a notice is assessed by reading its substance as a whole (paragraph 32). He said the regime is penal in nature, so the person penalised is entitled to know why the power has been used against them (paragraph 34). He added that fairness requires accurate and sufficient information to let the employer decide whether to appeal under section 17 (paragraph 35). He also noted that the section 15(1) cases are mutually exclusive (paragraph 36).
The Secretary of State also argued in the alternative that any defect would not make the notice invalid, relying on R v Soneji [2006] 1 AC 340.
The text of the judgment available to us ends part-way through paragraph 36, so this item does not report the Court's final conclusion on whether the notice was valid or the order made.
What this means for applicants
Employers who receive a civil penalty notice can compare the reasons stated in the notice with the grounds in section 15(1). An appeal to the county court under section 17 is a re-hearing, and the court may consider matters the Secretary of State did not know about when the notice was issued (section 17(3)).
Sources
- [Akbars Restaurant (Middlesborough) Limited v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2026] UKSC 26](https://caselaw.nationalarchives.gov.uk/uksc/2026/26)