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The judgement says 'came close to..', it doesn't say say they did. Nor does it explain why an order for wasted costs wouldn't have met the justice of the case. Or take account of the fact that unlike private litigants HMRC's job in these sorts of cases is not to win at all costs but to help the tribunal to reach a decision by putting forward arguments about what the law actually is. Now the tribunal is going to have to do that without the benefit of any cross-argument and work out for itself what may be the flaws in the Appellants' case. I can see it living to regret making this order. Finally, as taxpayers yourselves, are you really happy that someone else may be getting away with a wholly unmeritorious win and underpay tax because of some technical mix-up? If you do I trust you won't be complaining about Google and other corporates taking advantage of the rules.