The Competition Appeal Tribunal has granted four collective proceedings orders (CPOs) on an opt-out basis in actions for £1.2bn in damages against the four UK mobile network operators (MNOs), namely, Vodafone, BT/EE, Hutchison 3G/Three and Telefonica/O2. The applications were brought by Mr Justin Gutmann as class representative on behalf of classes of retail customers for damages caused by the MNOs’ pricing under their contracts for both mobile phone handsets and airtime services combined.
The Tribunal ruled that the claims were limited in time to claims arising after the entry into force of the collective regime on 1 October 2015, holding that the transitional arrangements in the Tribunal rules precluded claims arising before that date. However, the Tribunal dismissed an application by three of the MNOs to strike out claims between 2015 and 2017, i.e., arising more than six years before the CPO applications had been made.
Rhodri Thompson KC and Nicholas Gibson, together with James White of Henderson Chambers, were instructed by Charles Lyndon Ltd.
The Tribunal’s Judgment can be found here.
Further details of Mr Gutmann’s claims against the MNOs are available on Charles Lyndon’s website here.