The £14bn class action case against Mastercard―rejected by a tribunal last year―has been given Court of Appeal permission to proceed.
In a unanimous decision this week, Merricks v Mastercard [2019] EWCA Civ 674, the court ruled that Walter Merricks can bring proceedings against the bank on behalf of 46 million consumers for losses suffered due to illegal card fees. It held an earlier Competition Appeal Tribunal judgment contained errors of law and the tribunal misdirected itself about how it applied the legislative regime.
Merricks, a former Financial Ombudsman, is bringing the first mass consumer claim under the new ‘opt-out’ collective action regime introduced by the Consumer Rights Act 2015. The case now returns to the tribunal.
Boris Bronfentrinker, partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, who is representing Merricks, said: ‘Whilst it had been commented that the claim against Mastercard was overblown, the Court of Appeal has... definitively determined the opposite, recognising the need for mass consumer collective actions to be able to be pursued.’
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