Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Merricks v Mastercard: CAT grants limited permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal on pre‑1997 collective claims, addressing limitation knowledge and EU principle of effectiveness

Published on: 31 July 2024

Published by a Law360 reporter

Legal News

Article summary

Following a ruling by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), class representative and consumer campaigner Walter Merricks may advance two of his four proposed appeal grounds before the Court of Appeal, as he seeks to reinstate claims for losses predating June 1997 over allegations that Mastercard levied excessively high swipe charges from 1992 to 2008. In particular, the CAT has permitted him to contest its findings that a judgment of an EU high court cannot be invoked to contend that the limitation clock does not begin to run 'before the claimant knew that it has suffered harm as a result of the unlawful conduct', and that the tribunal wrongly grafted onto his case a 'reasonable discoverability requirement' as to whether he could reasonably have uncovered the wrongdoing sooner. On the EU point, the CAT said that although it maintains its position, 'we accept that a contrary argument has a real chance of success and accordingly grant permission on this ground'. By contrast, the CAT adopted a firmer stance on his discoverability submissions, notwithstanding his contention that Mastercard hid key facts from consumers through confidentiality pacts with its member banks concerning interchange fees...

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