Millions of Mastercard customers are closer to a £300 payout from the company after a tribunal gave the green light for the biggest collective case in British legal history to proceed.
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 gave large groups the power to sue for alleged breaches of competition law. Six years after the UK’s class action regime was introduced, the Competition Appeal Tribunal last month certified the first claim of its kind to go to trial. It followed a ruling last December by the Supreme Court, which upheld a Court of Appeal in 2018, that the first opt-out consumer class action should proceed and lowered the hurdle facing applicants for a collective proceedings order.
Walter Merricks, the solicitor and former financial services ombudsman who is
