A recent High Court decision in claims brought by thousands of claimants against motor finance providers has reaffirmed the validity of using omnibus claim forms in large-scale consumer litigation. The ruling has implications both for the many motor-finance mis-selling claims pending before the courts and also for mass claims in a variety of other contexts.
Background
The case involved eight omnibus claim forms issued on behalf of over 5,800 claimants against eight defendants. While the claims were at an early stage procedurally, the core allegations were that the defendants had paid undisclosed, variable commissions to motor finance brokers (car dealers), creating conflicts of interest which the claimants argued rendered the ensuing credit agreements unfair under Section 140A of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 (CCA).
Shortly after the claims were issued, and before filing any defence, the defendants objected to the use of omnibus claim forms and invited the court to sever the claims, such that the claimants’ solicitors would need to issue a separate claim form (and pay a court fee) for each claim.
Initially, a County Court judge ruled that the claims should be severed into individual cases, following Abbott v Ministry of Defence [2023] 1 WLR 4002. This would have required a separate claim form to be issued (and court fee paid) for each case. The claimants appealed, arguing that the claims could and should more appropriately be commenced under omnibus claim forms, as contemplated by CPR 7.3 and CPR 19.1.
Key Legal Considerations
CPR 7.3 allows a single claim form to be used for multiple claims if they can be “conveniently disposed of” in the same proceedings. CPR 19.1 provides that any number of claimants may be joined as parties to a claim.
In Morris v Williams & Co Solicitors [2024] EWCA Civ 376 the Court of Appeal clarified that no gloss should be put on the words of CPR 7.3 and 19.1, which should be given their ordinary meaning. The exclusionary “real progress,” “real significance,” and “must bind” tests proposed in Abbott were factors to consider but should not be viewed as exclusionary tests – the omnibus claim form jurisdiction was not as restrictive as the Group Litigation Order regime in CPR 19.21-28, and should not be treated as “GLO-light”. Abbott was overruled.
Factors Supporting Omnibus Claims
The High Court carried out a detailed analysis of the factors to be taken into account in deciding whether the claims could conveniently be disposed of together per CPR 7.3. Key points cited in favour of allowing omnibus claims to proceed included:
- The large number of claimants and small number of defendants.
- The claims arose from the same or similar transactions, with broadly common allegations and the same legal causes of action, raising a number of common legal and factual issues.
- The likelihood that case managing the cases together by way of lead or test cases would likely facilitate the disposal of many or all of the following cases. Whereas if separate claims were issued it would be random chance which claims were heard first and whether they were appropriate test cases.
- Managing the claims together would be more efficient and just, in line with the CPR 1.1 overriding objective. Costs would likely be saved overall, and court time would likely be reduced. The imbalance of financial power between individual claimants and defendants would be mitigated. There were advantages to omnibus claims management in terms of the timing and usefulness of disclosure, and the availability of expert evidence.
Practical Implications
For Defendants facing mass claims this ruling will be a concerning precedent for the use of omnibus claim forms by claimants as a strategy, with obvious advantages for claimant law firms in terms of cost, use of case management applications to gain early disclosure, and selection of common issues and test cases.
For Claimants and their advisers the decision will encourage the use of omnibus claims over the impracticality of litigating individual cases, and the relative restrictiveness of the GLO regime.
For the Courts omnibus claim forms could see large volumes of individual claims taken out of the County Courts and case managed collectively and in a less haphazard fashion than has so far been the case, with potential for many following cases to be settled out of court once lead claims have been determined. This may help with significant delays and backlogs often experienced in the County Courts.
Wider Significance
The significance of this decision in the context of motor finance claims may to some extent be rendered moot by the outcome of the Supreme Court appeal in Johnson v FirstRand and the FCA’s decision on a whether and to what extent to impose a consumer redress scheme. But in reaffirming the broad scope and flexibility of CPR 7.3 and 19.1, the ruling may pave the way for more mass claims in financial services and other contexts.