Class actions

Recent Articles

  •  
    14/02/2024
    United Kingdom

    Commission Recovery Limited v Marks & Clerk LLP: the Court of Appeal leaves commercial litigation funders with a challenge

    The representative proceedings mechanism codified in CPR r 19.8(1) allows a claimant to pursue an opt-out class action as the representative of a wider class, provided that they and all members of the class share the “same interest” in the claim.  It is available for all causes of action, and so is a potentially powerful mechanism for bringing claims beyond the scope of the Collective Proceedings Order regime, which is restricted to competition claims.In recent years, there have been several attempts to use the representative proceedings mechanism to bring opt-out class actions...
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  •  
    21/12/2023
    United Kingdom

    Representative proceedings: bifurcation tested in two claims

    Representative proceedings are a potentially powerful class action mechanism in that they can operate on an “opt-out” basis and that they are available for all causes of action.  This can be contrasted with the Collective Proceedings Order procedure, which was introduced in 2015 and which is also an “opt-out” mechanism, but which is only available for claimants for breach of competition law.Although the representative proceedings mechanism has been available in English procedural law for hundreds of years, it has recently gained significant attention following the Supreme...
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  •  
    05/12/2023
    United Kingdom

    Jagger and others v AXA Insurance UK Plc [2023] 7 WLUK 263 – Three Strikes Not Out

    The Court has found that it was an abuse of process to rely on the evidence of an expert whose independence was in question, as well as issuing the claims for significantly less than they were later amended to (and where the increased court fee was not paid until an Unless Order was issued). However, this abuse of process did not result in the striking out of the claims.BackgroundSheffield based law firm, SSB Law, represented 1,428 litigated claims concerning the defective or inappropriate installation of cavity wall insulation. 143 of these claims were issued within the Damages Claims Portal (‘DCP’)...
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  •  
    03/08/2023
    United Kingdom

    ClientEarth’s derivative claim against directors for alleged breaches of duties to address climate change risk has been dismissed (again)

    IntroductionThe High Court has reaffirmed its earlier judgment and dismissed ClientEarth’s derivative claim brought against Shell plc (“Shell”) and its Board of Directors. ClientEarth claimed that the directors had breached statutory directors’ duties and failed to comply with an order made by the Hague District Court on 26 May 2021, which imposed a 45% emissions reduction obligation on Shell to be achieved by 2030 (the “Dutch Order”).BackgroundClientEarth is a non-profit environmental law organisation. ClientEarth currently holds 27 shares in Shell and, on 9...
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  •  
    28/07/2023
    United Kingdom

    The Supreme Court deals blow to litigation funding and collective proceedings regimes in the UK

    On 26 July 2023, the Supreme Court handed down judgment in R (on the application of PACCAR Inc and others) (“Appellants”) v Competition Appeal Tribunal and others (“Respondents”) [2023] UKSC 28. The judgment ruled, in effect, that many litigation funding agreements (“LFAs”) constitute damages-based agreements (“DBAs”) for the purposes of section 58AA of the Courts and Legal Services Act 1990 (the “1990 Act”).  This judgment has immediate and acute consequences for litigation funding of competition class actions, but also for...
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  •  
    30/05/2023
    England and Wales

    High Court rejects CPR 19.8 class action, demonstrating challenges of mass data claims

    On 19 May the English High Court rejected an ‘opt-out’ class action brought on behalf of approximately 1.6 million people in Andrew Prismall v (1) Google UK Limited and (2) DeepMind Technologies Limited [2023] EWHC 1169 (KB).BackgroundMr Prismall brought this ‘opt-out’ claim pursuant to the ‘representative action’ mechanism set out in CPR 19.8(1) (termed CPR 19.6 prior to 6 April 2023).  The claim was brought in the tort of misuse of private information (‘MOPI’) and sought damages on a class-wide basis.  The Representative Claimant alleged...
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