Developments in group litigation: a more flexible approach?

• Considers the recent High Court judgment in Commission Recovery Ltd v Marks & Clerk LLP, which permitted a claimant pursuing a claim in respect of secret commissions to proceed on behalf of itself and clients and former clients of one of the defendants on an ‘opt out’ basis.
• The judgment demonstrated the flexibility of CPR 19.6, and noted the importance of legislative intervention to develop this area of law and thereby put England and Wales at the forefront of global collective redress.

The decision of the High Court in Commission Recovery Ltd v Marks & Clerk LLP and another [2023] EWHC 398 (Comm) represented the first significant judicial analysis of the ‘same interest’ test in CPR 19.6 since Lloyd v Google [2021] UKSC 50. The decision may mark a significant departure from the court’s historically restrictive