Are Express Statutory Powers Needed For A Regulator To Make An Intrusive Regulatory Decision?

The High Court has favoured a broad interpretation of general powers given to a regulator in dismissing a challenge to a decision concerning the imposition of fee caps: Visa, Mastercard and Revolut v Payment Systems Regulator [2026] EWHC 64 (Admin). In doing so, the court addressed some commonly used statutory interpretation arguments regarding when explicit statutory language is needed for an intrusive exercise of regulatory power.

Key Points

• The starting point will be to rely on the literal interpretation of a statutory provision, meaning where it is worded very generally and broadly, it may be difficult to persuade a court that some limitation was intended.
• There is no general rule of construction that where a power is referred to expressly in one statutory provision, it cannot also exist in a different part of the statute, in a different context, even though it is not spelt out expressly. The application of the principle that the general gives way to the