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LONDON, Nov 29 (Reuters) – Mastercard ( MA.N ) lost an appeal in a London court on Tuesday against a 10 billion pound-plus ($12 billion-plus) class action ruling that allowed claims by nearly three million people. Those who have died since the lawsuit began continued.
The global payment processor is facing a lawsuit brought by consumer champion Walter Merricks on behalf of around 46 million adults in the United Kingdom, which became the first consumer class action to be granted in the UK in 2021.
The case was certified last year after an almost five-year journey from the first-instance Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), which initially refused to go to the UK Supreme Court and back.
In March, the CAT said the date for determining whether members of the claimant class were located in the UK should be when the case was filed in 2016, meaning the claims of around three million people who died could be continued by their estates. .
MasterCard’s challenge to that decision was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on Tuesday, which ruled that the CAT was entitled to consider that three million people with valid claims in 2016 would be excluded.
Judge Julian Flocks said the overall purpose of the UK’s collective action regime – roughly equivalent to US class actions – was to “provide access to justice for individual claimants who would not otherwise be able to seek legal redress”.
He added: “The effect of the MasterCard case would, at least to a significant extent, defeat the overall purpose of the regime.”
A MasterCard spokesman said: “We will continue to fight this [the case] And trust that, once the facts are presented in court, the case will be thrown out.”
Merricks’ lawyer Boris Bronfentrinker said: “Mr Merricks is pleased with today’s ruling and looks forward to prevailing on the merits now to secure the billions in damages owed by MasterCard to UK customers.”
Merricks alleges that MasterCard charged excessive “interchange” fees — fees retailers pay to credit card companies when customers use the card to make purchases — between May 1992 and June 2008 and that those fees were passed on to customers because Retailers hiked prices.
Reported by Sam Tobin; Editing by Kirsten Donovan
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