By Ceara Sutton-Jones
Coined as ‘a revolution in English Law’ in perhaps the biggest case of the year, a class action against Mastercard worth £14bn was green lit by the UK Supreme Court just this past Friday. This is not the first time such a feat was attempted, simply adding to the huge sense of victory surrounding its progression, where in 2007 the application for a CPO (Colletive Proceedings Order) was dismissed in most part due to the complex nature of the case.
However, this is not where the story ends. In the July of 2017, following a European Commission decision, Mastercard was declared to be in breach of competition law. Having supposedly overcharged 46 million British citizens within the years of 1992-2008 by overpricing their interchange fees, there is no doubt that their integrity is currently somewhat in the lurch. In the eyes of the public especially, the likelihood of their innocence in their creation of an invisible tax over such a prolonged period of time is questionable at best. Despite this, the CAT (Competition Appeal Tribunal) did not allow the case to proceed to the next stage of litigation, ruling that the case brought forward by Walter Merricks failed to reach the requirements of common law.
This all changed on Friday when the Supreme Court recognised that had it been an ordinary civil case there would have been entitlement to a trial, and simply because it is a class action where an individual acts on behalf of a group, this should be no different. It is important to note that when dealing with a homogenous group of people who all have the same desire for compensation from the same large corporation, their individuality can often be screened over, thus, making the Supreme Court’s ruling a necessary one which has also paved the way for other cases to come to light.
To expand, it would have been difficult for a single person to find both funding and a voice against such a large company due to the small size of their claim. Here, the risks would outweigh the potential benefits. From this perspective, the Law should not discourage those who feel they have been a victim of injustice to come forward and fight their side, and to an extent this is what the laws surrounding class actions did. On the other hand, as is the narrative of Mastercard who ‘fundamentally disagree with the claim,’ there are understandable concerns surrounding the ruling where we expect to see an inevitable increase in class actions, which is a worry for many businesses in terms of time, money and reputation – especially if the claim has no merit.
There is no doubt that this landmark decision has created much debate in the legal world, a testament to the sheer scale of the case: 46 million British Citizens could be compensated up to £300 each. This case further provides a newly established legal precedent – it will be interesting to follow the developments of such a high-profile case, and the inevitable ripple effect it will have on how future class action cases are conducted.
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