Citroen: Claims not added
A High Court master has refused to allow 5,000 Dieselgate claimants to go ahead after their law firm failed to serve their claim form before the cut-off date.
The solicitors then applied for relief from sanctions only after an “extraordinary delay”.
But they told Legal Futures that the cases remain live.
Senior Master Cook said he accepted the defendants’ argument that there would be prejudice “to the orderly conduct of proceedings” following the group litigation order (GLO) he made in January 2024 if the claimants were allowed to join the action now.
There would be prejudice too in relation to “the selection of sample claimants given the conclusion of the liability trial and the fact that the quantum trial has been listed with the sample claimants already chosen from the group register”.
Master Cook agreed as well that, if the application were to be granted, “there would be the potential risk of other parties who are out of time seeking to join the group register long after it has been closed”.
The High Court heard that the 5,000 claimants, represented by Liverpool firm Bingham Long, sought to be added to the Peugeot/Citroen/DS (PCD) claim within what is officially known as the Pan-NOx emissions litigation.
Judgment on liability is awaited and, subject to the decision, there will be a quantum trial in October.
James Twigg, the solicitor-advocate acting for the claimants, argued that the claim form was served in accordance with the requirements of the GLO, and if not relief from sanctions should be granted to allow the claimants to join.
The GLO required claims to be issued and served by 4pm on 15 December 2024. But given court delays, the GLO was amended by a consent order on 11 December to give seven days to serve any claim forms sealed on or after 8 December.
Mr Twigg submitted the claim form to the court using CE-File on 11 December. On 16 December, he received an e-mail confirming that the filings had been accepted and could be accessed on CE-File.
But it was only on 12 January 2025 that he accessed CE-File, downloaded the claim form and served it by e-mail.
Mr Twigg said the breach occurred because of a combination of a change of email address from the one associated with his CE-File account and problems with accessing the old account, and “a misunderstanding of the meaning” of the court’s communications.
Master Cook said it was “unsustainable” for the solicitor to argue that he only received the sealed claim when he accessed the CE-File.
He agreed with the defendants that “any experienced litigator conducting litigation in the High Court would know that the use of CE-File is compulsory and would either know how the system worked or would take reasonable steps to find out.
Applying the Denton test to the application for relief from sanctions, Master Cook said he did not accept the argument that the delay of 19 days in serving the claim form “puts the breach at the lower end of the scale of seriousness”.
It was, he said, “serious and significant”, while the solicitor’s statement that there was “no malice or ill-will” could not possibly amount to a “good explanation” for the breach.
There had also been an “extraordinary delay” in bringing the application. There had been without prejudice discussions between the parties but these had ceased by June 2025, seven months before the application was issued.
The judge concluded that there had been “a serious and substantial breach for which no good explanation has been provided and where all the circumstances militate against granting relief”. He dismissed the claimants’ application.
A spokesman for Bingham Long said: “We are disappointed with Master Cook’s interpretation. The claim form and the claims remain active.
“The application was made by the claimant solicitors to regularise the position of the claimants on the group register. While the application was dismissed, it’s our contention the claims remain subject to the PCD GLO, therefore no appeal was necessary.
“Bingham Long act for over 44,000 claimants against nine different manufacturers relating to the Dieselgate scandal and await judgment from the High Court following a liability trial last October.”
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