Legal case against top Greater Manchester authority 'to go on for months' as £300 million Renaker loans quizzed

The legal case which has seen the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) sued over more than £100 million in loans to a major developer will drag on for months, it’s expected.

Aubrey Weis, owner of Weis Group, is taking the GMCA to court over multi-million-pound ‘loans’ given to property development tycoons Renaker. He claims the money lent out by the GMCA’s Housing Investment Loan Fund (GMHILF) constituted a subsidy to Renaker’s special-purpose companies.

Specifically, Mr Weis claims the £70.8m loan to Trinity Developments (Manchester) Limited and £69.2m loan to New Jackson (Contour) Investments Limited were granted at a rate of interest below ‘commercial terms’, which has ‘distorted the operation of the market for property investment’.

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That, he argues, led to ‘Trinity and Jackson to undertake projects’ at cheaper than-usual-prices, according to the case’s Notice of Appeal, which the claimant says is a breach of the Subsidy Control Act 2022. There is no suggestion Renaker has done anything wrong in securing the loans.

Now, it’s been revealed the GMCA expects the case to go well into next year. Speaking at a meeting of its overview meeting on Wednesday (August 14), monitoring officer Gill Duckworth gave councillors an update.

“The claim is not necessarily [the process] is unfair, but the [loans] provide a subsidy,” she said. “We are disputing that and it’s something that will go through the Tribunal.

“It’s only the second claim of this type in the country. We do expect the Tribunal to run with it so it’s going to be six months before we get an outcome.”

It’s understood that while the loans have