Updates + Events

TRIBUNAL POSTPONES CERTIFICATION HEARING

Before a collective action can proceed, the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (the Tribunal) must make a collective proceedings order, authorising the proposed class representative and certifying the claims as eligible to be included in collective proceedings. The certification hearing was listed for 1 March 2021.

However, the Tribunal has previously indicated that the certification hearing should not take place until after the Supreme Court hands down its decision in an earlier collective action (Merricks v Mastercard). The Supreme Court is expected to give helpful guidance on the test for certification of collective actions (for more information on that hearing, see our earlier article here).

The Supreme Court has not yet given its judgment and the Tribunal has now decided that there is insufficient time before 1 March to complete the procedural steps that will have to follow once the judgment is handed down. The Tribunal has therefore ordered that the hearing be vacated and re-listed for later in 2021. We will update this website when the certification hearing has been re-listed.

If you would like to be notified of the re-listing, please register here to be kept up to date on this and other developments.