PPL chief warns refunds ruling is 'unfinished business'

PPL boss Fran Nevrkla has warned that he regards a ruling force the firm to pay £20m of refunds to pubs as "unfinished business".

Speaking at the royalty collection company's AGM in London today, Nevrkla said: "To say that PPL found last year's UK Copyright Tribunal decision hugely disappointing, if not shocking, is an understatement.

"Clearly, normal business must continue but I regard this as a piece of unfinished business."

Last October, the government's Copyright Tribunal ruled that venues - including pubs - had been paying over the odds for recorded music since 2005. PPL appealed the decision in the High Court, but the bid failed.

Nevrkla added that the rights of performers and record companies "must be maintained and enhanced by being paid for at sensible commercially justifiable rates".

He also said: "Anybody like PPL needs some supervision and without doubt the Copyright Tribunal is the appropriate body, but only if it is properly structured and pays some attention to the real world out there."

Pubs are also set to face a 50 per cent late payment surcharge, PPL revealed in its annual report.

The report said the recession had brought about a "general reluctance from our customers to voluntarily pay us". It said the 50 per cent surcharge was "one of the few, but fair, benefits introduced by the Copyright Tribunal".

Overall PPL reported a slight decline in licence fee income at the AGM as result of the refunds pay-out.

The society revealed that instead of a record £129.6m licence fee income - a rise of two per cent on the £127.6m collected in 2008 - after accounting for a £18.1m public performance refund forced on it by the Tribunal, income fell by 13 per cent to £111.4m.