Lawyer loses overdraft fees test case

A rookie barrister has lost his landmark legal battle to force NatWest bank to justify its fees and to cough up damages for taking £2,500 from his account in unauthorised overdraft charges.

NatWest had already offered Tom Brennan £3,000 but he was seeking aggravated damages at the City of London County Court for stress and exemplary damages for “deliberate, malicious or negligent” behaviour. However, in an 80-minute judgment, Judge Peter Simpson comprehensively rejected Brennan’s legal arguments.

“It is not for the claimant to set himself up as a champion of other customers,” he said. “He does not have any legal standing to litigate on behalf of other people.”

Judge Simpson refused Brennan leave to appeal, but outside the court the currently non-practising barrister said he would approach the High Court directly and ask it to hear his case.

The case comes a week after the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) announced it will push for a High Court declaration on whether the rules in the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 (SI 1999/2083) apply to overdraft charges.

Brennan claims that even if the OFT manages to clarify this point, its case would not make clear the position for bank customers who ran up overdraft charges in the past.