I'm pretty sure the authors prejudices are running pretty strong in this article.
HMRCs lawyers felt very strongly there was a case and felt very strongly they could win it. The case never happened so statements like "these rules didn't apply" were never properly tested. Vodafone of course were desperate for the rules to not be tested as they felt they would lose and they'd already set aside a much larger stack of money for when that happened.
What happened was the dick in charge completely lacking in the expertise necessary to make the decisions he did, had a nice lunch, shook hands and gave up.
I notice there's also no mention of the similar stitch up Hartnett arranged with Goldman Sachs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
