Sanctions on a group of Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) participants who had been kicked out of the scheme are to be lifted.

It comes after a successful legal challenge by local lorry and machinery dealership Dennison Commercials Ltd.

The test case surrounded the mechanisms that were used to try to recoup RHI payments from participants and revoke scheme memberships.

In June, the High Court ruled in favour of Dennison on three out of the six grounds that the case was based on, including that the procedures followed by the Department for the Economy were unfair.

It is understood that there were eight other cases where similar legal proceedings had been initiated by RHI participants who had been removed from the scheme.

Legal challenges

Following the Dennison case, these sanctions are to be lifted and repayments will be made. There were a similar number of cases where legal challenges had not been started, but the Department for the Economy is expected to revoke all sanctions on these RHI participants too.

A third group of RHI participants were still under investigation and awaiting the outcome of a review into each individual case.

There are 12 cases in this group and each review was put on hold until the outcome of the legal proceedings in the other cases became known.