Phoenix in flames: lessons from Pilling (Pt 2)

In the second part of this special series, Nicholas Bevan analyses the Supreme Court’s approach to motor policy construction

The first instalment of this two-part feature on R & S Pilling t/a Phoenix Engineering v UK Insurance Ltd [2019] UKSC 16, considered the restrictive way in which the Supreme Court discharged its duty to give effect to the wider scope of Article 3 of EC Directive 2009/103/EC on motor insurance (the Directive) when construing s 145 of Pt VI of the Road Traffic Act 1988 (RTA 1988) (see Pt 1 in NLJ, 17 May 2019 p9). The court ruled that it was not possible to ‘read down’ s 145 RTA 1988 to extend its geographic scope to require compulsory third-party cover to extend to the use of vehicles on private premises.

The appeal was made in a contribution