Carter: Significant opportunity
The Access to Justice Foundation (ATJF) has today announced a groundbreaking £3.9m grants programme mainly funded by unclaimed damages from a collective action.
Improving Lives Through Advice 2026 is a three-year unrestricted grants programme designed to support the delivery of free legal advice to communities most in need.
Last September, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) approved the agreed payment of £3.8m to the ATJF from the unclaimed damages in Justin Gutmann’s boundary fares action against Stagecoach South West Trains.
The claim settled for £25m. Despite an estimated 1.4m rail passengers potentially eligible for a share, only £216,500 was claimed by class members, leaving almost £10m of unclaimed damages. The foundation is the nominated recipient of unclaimed damages.
The new programme will target organisations delivering services in London, the south east of England, Scotland and Wales, as those are the regions where either class members are based, face the most persistent gaps in access to free legal advice, and where the ATJF has no, or very few, grants currently distributed.
The ATJF unveiled its strategy for dispensing grants from money received from collective actions last October.
Chief executive Clare Carter said: “Unclaimed damages from collective actions represent a significant opportunity to strengthen access to justice. This programme allows us to channel unclaimed funds into frontline advice organisations, helping to ensure that the outcomes of collective redress are felt by the communities most in need.
“As this programme is distributing funds from collective actions, we will be expecting funded partners to work with us to demonstrate the impact of this funding.”
Separately, the CAT last week approved the final two defendants’ settlement of the car delivery charges case.
It brings the total compensation recovered on behalf of consumers and businesses to £93m; it is the first opt-out class action settlement from which businesses will benefit. A hearing on a distribution strategy will be held in the spring.
Finally, research commissioned by class action firm Hausfeld has found that two-thirds of UK consumers want to be included automatically in opt-out collective actions rather than having to sign up for them.
Asked how likely people were to opt in to a collective action for which they were eligible, 14% said they definitely would and 45% probably would.
While 64% believed it should be easier to bring collective actions, Hausfeld said only a minority of the over 3,000 consumers polled by FindOutNow felt that they understand them well.
The research was carried out to inform the Department of Business & Trade’s call for evidence on the collective action regime and to counter calls to restrict them.
Nearly two-thirds of people (64%) had heard of collective legal claims, but only 5% said they understood them “very well” and 30% “somewhat well”.
Three out of 10 consumers said they did not understand collective legal claims “at all” and a further quarter “not very well”.
Consumers were most likely to find out about a collective action they were eligible for through consumer rights websites and forums, and after that from online news websites and TV news.
Anthony Maton, global co-chair of Hausfeld, commented: “The message from the public could not be clearer – people want fair markets, meaningful accountability and a system that ensures rule-breaking companies cannot simply retain unlawful gains.
“The findings show that the people who are aware of collective actions see their value, but equally a strong theme emerges i.e. that more still needs to be done including by the government around awareness and education, and the smart use of consumer websites, online news and social media will be paramount.”
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