United Kingdom: Class Actions

The Court of Appeal has rejected Meta's challenge to Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen's amendment of her pleadings to include a claim for 'user damages' in a competition law case concerning Facebook's collection of personal data. This decision opens up another potential claim against tech companies for alleged misuse of consumer data, with the question of whether such damages will be awarded to be decided at trial in October 2028.

The case also shows that the court must interpret a judgment in a test case in context and without hindsight in determining the extent to which it binds other claims.

As online harm evolves from a regulatory concern into a significant liability exposure, platforms face mounting pressure from claimants alleging psychiatric injury, addictive design, and failures to remove harmful content. With regulators in the UK, Australia, and the US placing greater responsibility on digital platforms to identify and mitigate foreseeable harms, organizations must reassess their governance, risk management, and insurance arrangements to address this rapidly developing area of litigation.

The High Court has rejected a judicial review challenge by litigation funder Innsworth Capital against the Competition Appeal Tribunal's distribution of settlement proceeds in the landmark Merricks v Mastercard collective proceedings. The case raises fundamental questions about how settlement funds should be allocated between class members and litigation funders, and the extent to which the Tribunal can override contractual funding arrangements to protect class interests.

In this edition of our banking litigation podcast, we consider some recent cases that will be most relevant to in-house lawyers at banks and financial institutions.

The president of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has signalled a more rigorous approach to scrutinising opt-out collective actions at the certification stage, with particular attention...

Much anticipated announcement from the UK Government confirms that it will be taking legislative action to "mitigate the impact of the 2023 Supreme Court judgment in PACCAR" and to "implement proportionate regulation of third-party litigation funding agreements".

The recent announcement of a proposed collective action for damages against housebuilders provides further evidence of a paradigm change in the competition law landscape in the United Kingdom ("UK").

The graphic below tracks the number of competition class actions (CPO applications) filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) since the introduction of a new 'opt-out' regime in the UK...