Our group action claims are currently stayed, pending appeals of judgments on procedural points. The hearing of the appeals will take place in February 2025. Presently, we are to attend a separate hearing in October 2024 to deal with applications made by both sides.  In light of the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) announcement on Discretionary Commission Arrangements on 30 July 2024 we expect that the appeal hearing in 2025 will go ahead as planned without delay.

Having taken stock of the FCA announcement and the accompanying consultation paper, the firm will be litigating individual claims concerning motor finance discretionary commission arrangements. We have been issuing our clients’ claims against a variety of motor finance lenders including Mercedes-Benz Financial Services UK Limited and RCI Financial Services Limited.

In terms of the FCA consultation paper, we provided our feedback to the FCA at the end of August 2024. The FCA have explained that they will publish a further paper this month, summarising and commenting on the feedback provided.

Barings Law continue to represent thousands of clients and assist in recovering compensation for clients who were mis-sold their motor vehicle finance agreements.

All car finance providers are legally required to carry out proportional credit and affordability checks prior to entering into the agreement with a consumer. This can mean reviewing the client’s credit record, income and expenses to ensure they can afford to make payments on their Personal Contract Purchase (PCP) or Hire Purchase (HP) agreement.

Any failure to carry out these checks is a clear case of mis-selling and dealer or finance providers securing deals that their customers can’t afford to repay is irresponsible behaviour.

Thousands of consumers have faced serious financial difficulties as a result of being sold unaffordable credit. 

This was particularly evident when the COVID pandemic hit the UK, and maintaining commitments such as car finance payments became an even greater challenge.

Many people’s incomes were reduced due to lockdowns and the furlough scheme. However, some lenders irresponsibly continued granting finance to consumers without assessing their affordability.

If you were on furlough and took out a PCP or HP agreement for your vehicle, it is important to consider the potential long-term effect on your finances. 

Claims on the grounds of irresponsible lending or unaffordable borrowing are not, however, restricted to finance agreements taken out during the COVID era.

Barings Law will prepare and submit claims for clients in all instances of mis-selling due to unaffordability.

Questions to consider:

1. Did you receive new credit during the furlough period? How did this affect your financial position?

2. Were your interest rate and repayment conditions manageable, given your reduced income?

Hundreds of our clients say they felt pressured into accepting the finance and that the car finance agreements affected their mental wellbeing and quality of life. They believe the PCP payments added a huge amount of pressure, not only to their finances but also to their personal lives.

This does not only affect consumers who entered into finance agreements during the pandemic as finance providers have been neglecting to carry out adequate financial checks before and after the pandemic.

If you have been affected by irresponsible lending, and were sold a finance product that you could not afford, the potential remedies could be:

a. A refund of the interest paid on the agreement, any charges paid on the agreement and/or the remaining outstanding balance on the agreement being waived.

b. Any adverse entries or negative marks on your credit file being removed.

c. A refund of the deposit paid on the agreement.

Barings Law have successfully recovered thousands for our clients and our highest refund to date is £22,145*.

*Figure is before deduction for legal fees/disbursements

Carphone Warehouse

In line with court directions, we have – in agreement with the other side – chosen a suitable mediator. Mediation is due to commence in October. While there is no guarantee that mediation will be successful, we are hopeful of reaching an agreement with the defendant and settling this case.

Zellis/MoveIT

Zellis has denied liability. Our team has since been hard at work finalising all the necessary documentation, in order to issue the case in the High Court in London. We aim to have this case with the court by the end of October. We have a completed Particulars of Claim and are now eager to issue proceedings.

Capita

As for our class action against Capita, Capita has not accepted liability for its data breach. In turn, we have issued proceedings with the High Court and anticipate a hearing will take place sometime next year.  

In the meantime, our team continues to onboard new clients who will be added to the class action.

Shared Services Connected Ltd / Ministry of Defence

We have a case management review hearing which has been listed to be heard in June 2025. In the meantime, our team continues to onboard new clients.

South Staffs Water

After admission of liability by SSW, they have failed to further engage with us. We are now in the process of issuing court proceedings against them. We have sent out a letter before claim and a schedule of claimants. A response was expected from SSW by August; however, they have failed to respond. As a result, our next step will be to issue proceedings. 

Leicester City Council

Our newest campaign against Leicester City Council is live. In March, Leicester City Council had been hit by a cyber-attack by INC Ransom, a ransomware group. It has been confirmed that the hackers had accessed at least 1.3 terabytes worth of sensitive data, including rent statements, social housing purchasing applications and passport details. Our current focus is to continue onboarding clients for this campaign. We will soon be notifying Leicester City Council of our involvement in this matter.

Arnold Clark

We continue to liaise with the legal representatives of car sales company Arnold Clark. They maintain their stance that Arnold Clark are not liable for the data breach, which occurred in December 2022, as all effective measures were in place at the time of the cyber-attack. 

Radius Cases

We are still seeing steady settlement offers coming through from insurers on radius cases. For more complex cases, we are continuing to liaise with loss adjusters and defendant solicitors to ensure the best possible outcomes for the clients.

Premises Cases

The Court of Appeal has finally delivered its judgment in the ‘at the premises’ appeal cases which were heard in June 2024.  The claimants succeeded in all of the main points of the appeal, with the court finding that the appropriate methods for understanding the insured peril and for applying the subsequent test of causation are based on the same principles determined by the Supreme Court in the FCA test case.

The decision also confirmed that knowledge of the specific incidence of disease at the insured premises by the relevant authorities is not required in order to trigger cover and also defined that ‘public authority’ incorporates all levels of local and national government, being a common-sense approach to determining what the policyholder would have reasonably understood the cover to provide when incepting the policy of insurance.

The BIC team have fought tirelessly for this decision and will now assist all of its clients whose claims have been placed on hold pending the Court of Appeal decision to achieve the compensation that they are entitled to and which they have been made to wait so long for.

Public Emergency Cases

Barings are currently pressing forward with numerous different categories of ‘Public Emergency’ type policies. These claims were initially rejected by insurers. However, through our efforts over the last few years we are seeing some substantive progress being made. 

Current Legislation

Following a recent Arbitration between various policyholders and Canopius Managing Agents Limited, whereby Sir Richard Aikens as sole arbitrator decided that policyholders could claim under these types of policies, we have stayed the majority of the litigation in an attempt to settle the claims with the insurers. Some claims have settled, some have received interim payments, with others ongoing. 

AA Clauses

There are various approaches being adopted by different insurers. Barings are currently challenging those insurers that are putting forward less favourable offers to our clients so as to ensure they receive the maximum compensation they are entitled to. We are continuously pressing forward with these cases, with various interim payments and some final settlements being awarded. 

Other Clauses

Barings are currently progressing numerous other types of ‘Public Emergency’ policy claims. Some of these are taking similar approaches as the above, with others pressing forward through litigation, likely to be tried on the preliminary issues of policy coverage. These policies are often technical and complex in their wording and interpretation, and Barings alongside counsel feel confident in pushing forward to ensure our clients receive appropriate compensation. 

Denial of Access Cases

The Zurich and AXA claims are moving through litigation and are awaiting various hearing dates.

Cases affected by the decision on the ‘incident’ wording in the case of International Exhibition Holdings v Allianz are currently paused. We are keenly awaiting the outcome of the appeal which will hopefully be heard later in the year.

Bomb Hoax Clause Cases

We are seeing great progression of the bomb hoax clause cases and we are currently liaising with all clients to collect any outstanding information to help progress the claims and achieve well-deserved settlements, with offers being received quite regularly across one cohort of these claims.

Quarterly Settlement Performance

During the period June-August (to date) we have agreed interim or final damages of more than £500,000 on behalf of 18 separate clients, with a number of other offers having been received from insurers which are being reviewed and discussed with clients.

The Undisclosed Commission claims have been progressing steadily through the legal system. However, there have been developments in recent weeks that we would like to bring to your attention.

A significant number of claims have been moving forward, with some reaching critical stages of litigation. We are pleased to report that a number of these claims are advancing towards resolution, with a few cases having already resulted in favourable outcomes for the claimants in terms of settlements in relation to commissions paid on Payment Protection Insurance (PPI).

However, we have encountered challenges with claims involving undisclosed commissions paid on mortgages and loans. The primary difficulty lies in the lack of established legal precedent regarding whether borrowers can recover undisclosed commissions from third parties to whom the loan has been transferred. This area of law remains unclear, and we believe that further legal guidance is needed. To address this, we have recently sought permission to appeal a decision that was made against a borrower with the assistance of counsel. We are optimistic that permission will be granted, which will allow us to proceed with the appeal and seek greater clarity on this important issue.

Additionally, several cases have been placed on hold pending the outcome of test cases initiated last year. It is likely that these cases will remain on hold until the appeal process mentioned above is completed. We believe that, once the appeal is resolved, we will be in a stronger position to move these stayed cases forward.

We will continue to keep you updated on any significant developments.

Barings Law continues to represent clients who have received negligent advice regarding the transfer of their accrued pension benefits. We are dedicated to supporting those who have suffered financial loss due to receiving negligent advice from FCA-regulated financial advisers. 

We are pleased to announce that we have successfully represented a wide range of clients who, upon following the advice of the financial advisers, transferred their pension benefits into high-risk and unsuitable pension vehicles and subsequent investments. Unfortunately, these decisions have led to a substantial depletion of their hard-earned pension provisions, causing significant financial uncertainty as they approach retirement. 

We recognise the devastating impact that negligent financial advice can have on individuals’ futures, particularly when it involves their life savings. Our team is committed to thoroughly investigating each case to identify failings in the facilitation of the transfer of benefit and holding the responsible parties accountable. We work diligently to ensure our clients receive the compensation and redress they are entitled to, helping to restore their financial security and peace of mind upon retirement.  

We are pleased to announce that the Banking Claims Department has successfully represented numerous clients who fell victim to sophisticated scam operations, resulting in significant financial losses. 

It has become clear that many individuals have been drawn into so-called ‘quick’ money-making opportunities promoted by unregulated and unethical organisations, leading to substantial financial harm and consumer detriment. 

Our dedicated Banking Claims Department has effectively identified failures by financial providers and has appropriately represented our clients’ positions by way of outlining the events that occurred prior to and after the transfer of funds, their lack of knowledge and sophistication in areas such as purchasing crypto assets, blockchain analysis, simulations and market manipulation. 

Furthermore, we have utilised the services of the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) to review and consider claims whereby financial providers have not upheld complaints concerning their failure to implement appropriate fraud prevention measures to identify unusual spending habits, high-risk recipients, and the hallmarks of potential scam operations. 

We are pursuing a vast amount of irresponsible lending cases over numerous product types including credit cards, store and catalogue cards, overdrafts and gambling affordability. 

We are pleased to confirm that this quarter we have received an increase in offers from numerous lenders who have failed to fulfil their obligations to complete sufficient creditworthiness and affordability checks prior to providing unsuitable credit facilities to our clients. 

We are continuing to liaise with third-party redress schemes such as the Financial Ombudsman Service who are currently reviewing a number of cases to determine whether our clients are eligible for a refund of interest and associated charges under their agreements through breaches of the relevant regulatory rules and guidance. 

We strive to ensure that we have a constant level of communication and open dialogue with the above party and assist with their investigation in any way possible – as we understand that due to high demands and limited resources, it can take longer for claims to be reviewed, considered and concluded.