On 18 August 2021, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (“CAT”) made the first Collective Proceedings Order (“CPO”) since the UK collective action regime for competition/antitrust claims was introduced in 2015 by an amendment to the Competition Act 1998 (the “Act”).
The order, in the case of Merricks v Mastercard, was not unexpected since it was common ground that a CPO would be made following the landmark decision of the UK Supreme Court in December 2020 in the same case, which made the regime for competition law class actions in the UK significantly more claimant friendly. The Merricks CPO was followed swiftly by a second CPO, made by the CAT on 27 September 2021 in the case of Patourel v BT Group, and a third on 19 October 2021 in the case of Gutmann (otherwise known as the ‘Boundary Fares’ dispute). With a number of further CPO decisions expected to be handed down in the coming months, are we now likely to see a growth in class actions in the UK to rival those in the US, or are there factors that will limit that growth?
