Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Competition Appeal Tribunal refuses CPO certification and grants summary judgment to PRS in ‘black box’ royalties claim, citing no credible damages methodology and no identifiable class with competition claims

Published on: 02 September 2025

Published by an LexisNexis TMT expert

Legal News

Article summary

A proposed collective claim against a UK music copyright collective over allegedly unfair sharing of royalty payments has been stopped from proceeding to trial, judges at the CAT ruled on 27 August 2025. In refusing to certify the claim for trial, the UK specialist antitrust court concluded that the PRS had succeeded in a summary judgment application, which brings a case to an end before trial where it has no realistic prospect of success.

Claim leader David Rowntree—the drummer from British rock band Blur—sought compensation from the PRS for thousands of songwriters. The claim targets ‘black box’ royalties: sums that cannot be matched and paid to the correct artist because of administrative and clerical issues, including missing or incorrect data. Rowntree contends that the PRS’s approach to handling these royalties has produced unfair outcomes.

Arguments

To gain trial approval from the CAT, Rowntree’s primary task was to persuade the judges that the claim had a workable methodology capable of evidencing unlawfulness in the collection and use of data underpinning royalty distribution practices. In Rowntree’s view, the society holds a dominant position in...

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