Hearing in relation to two FX cartel claims in the Competition Appeal Tribunal

On Thursday, 13 February 2020, the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) will hold a hearing to consider the future case management of two competing collective actions relating to unlawful foreign exchange spot trading cartels involving six major banks.

In December 2019, specialist litigation firm Hausfeld filed an opt-out collective action (FX Claim UK) against Barclays, Citibank, The Royal Bank of Scotland, JPMorgan, UBS and MUFG Bank on behalf of Phillip Evans, the proposed class representative, who is a former Inquiry Chair with the Competition and Markets Authority.

Mr Evans proposes to represent the interests of thousands of participants in the foreign exchange market by claiming damages for the harm alleged to have been caused by the banks’ unlawful conduct, which took place between 2007 to 2013.

The CAT will consider the future case management of Mr Evans’ claim alongside a similar application, which was filed by Scott+Scott on behalf of Michael O’Higgins FX Class Representative Limited in July 2019. The two applications will compete for certification and the CAT will need, in due course, to decide which is more suitable to act as the class representative. This is the first time that this issue will be considered by the English courts.

Phillip Evans commented: “I believe strongly in ensuring that the UK has an effective collective redress regime, so that those affected by anti-competitive conduct are compensated. This case concerns serious misconduct in a very important market, and I have been working with Hausfeld to carefully prepare FX Claim UK following the European Commission’s two decisions, which were announced in May 2019.”

The hearing will take place at the Competition Appeal Tribunal, Salisbury Square House, 8 Salisbury Square, London EC4Y 8AP. It is scheduled to start at 10am on Thursday, 13 February and last for two days.

As this is the first time the CAT considers competing lawsuits related to damages caused by the same action, the case has been widely reported in the press.

Global Competition Review (13/02) (subscription only) 
Law360 (subscription only) 
MLex (12/02) and MLex (13/02) (subscription only) 
Money Age 
PaRR Global (subscription only) 

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