Digital Economy Act to go to the Court of Appeal

Yesterday, the Court of Appeal gave BT and TalkTalk permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal. I do not have any more details - in particular what was the reasoning of the court and what on what grounds will the appeal be argued. I hope to blog about them as soon as they become available.

Earlier this year, the Court of Appeal, in the form of Buxton LJ, had refused permission to appeal, leading to some rather misleading press coverage such as the Guardian's "Court of appeal's decision means long-running battle by UK's biggest ISPs is effectively over". Not so of course.

Unless the Court of Appeal thinks that an application for permission is "totally without merit", a prospective appellant may always renew an application for permission orally, under CPR 52.3. This, is, I understand, what BT and TalkTalk did.