Our Approach and Principles

Our campaign is focused on a number of areas, to promote a balanced legal environment in the UK that protects the interests of consumers, businesses and the public sector.

We are a member-led organisation, bringing together those with a shared interest in the area and in shaping a fairer, more transparent process.

Our diverse membership includes some of the UK’s leading business organisations, such as the British Chambers of Commerce and the Finance & Leasing Association. We also convene consumer groups, policymakers, regulators and third-sector organisations who recognise that there is a problem and are committed to finding solutions to tackle it.

We regularly meet with policymakers to share evidence and sentiment from consumers and the business community. We publish reports and policy papers to provide practical recommendations and solutions to improve the policy framework.

Through our newsletters, quarterly meetings and annual conference, we provide our supporters with access to cross-sector peer networks and topic-specific communities.

Seema Kennedy, our Executive Director, is a former MP and has spent her career fighting on behalf of British people and business.

Litigation should always be a last resort.

There is almost always an alternative to litigation that offers timelier, more cost-effective routes to redress. This includes alternative dispute resolution (ADR), such as mediation and ombudsman services. More straightforwardly, the issue can often be resolved through an existing complaints procedure offered by the company to their customer. For instance, in the airline industry, a cancelled or delayed flight has clear rules about compensation entitlement. Litigation is an important part of the legal landscape, but we must ensure it is used proportionately and not does not become the first port of call when disputes arise.

Litigation proceedings should not be overly influenced by “profit-driven” third parties.

Until very recently, litigation funding was unknown to most people in the UK. Today however, with every Briton signed up to an average of eight class action claims over our cars, credit cards or mobile phones, questions arise about who is paying for all of these claims and who stands to benefit.

The Third-Party Litigation Funding (TPLF) sector is now a huge industry in the UK, worth billions of pounds and made up of specialist companies and offshore speculators financing claims in which they have no direct involvement. The aggregate total being claimed in class actions now stands at over £120 billion and continues to rise sharply.

We believe that there should be much better oversight of the sector and clearer rules about how much third-party funders are able to influence the proceedings they are involved in.

Consumers deserve transparency and better protections around the litigation process.

There is clearly a place for litigation funding in the civil justice system. We recognise that for some claimants it can sometimes provide the lifeline that is needed to get a case to court. However, by choosing to work with a litigation funder, consumers should not be denied the basic safeguards that will offer protection throughout the legal process.

It is a well-established principle of the British justice system that all parties in litigation should have fair and accurate information about the process they are embarking on. However, the seismic changes brought about by the growth of the litigation and funding sector has altered the landscape, putting consumers at risk when things go wrong.

One notable example of this is the cavity wall insulation (CWI) scandal, where thousands of homeowners signed up with claimant law firms for supposed no-win, no-fee compensation claims for failed insulation in their homes. Many saw their cases change hands and landed legal bills of up to tens of thousands of pounds, after the law firm representing them went bust. Over 1,500 people across the north of England and Wales were impacted by the scandal, with victims facing repossession, bankruptcy and homelessness.

We continue to call for more safeguards for consumers, including an independent regulator for the funding sector and strong rules restricting the circumstances in which funders can terminate funding arrangements.

Access to justice is about meaningful outcomes rather than more litigation.

Advocates for more litigation routinely tout it as a means to facilitate “access to justice”. However, evidence from the U.S and other jurisdictions paints a different picture. The U.S system primarily benefits lawyers, not consumers. A 2015 study by the US Consumer Financial Protection Bureau found that only 13 percent of US class action suits resulted in payments to consumers. Even then, the average award was around £24, while the average lawyers’ fee was about £760,000.

The impact on British civil courts has also been dramatic. Campaigners have raised concerns about lawyers bringing environmental and data breach cases to the competition court under the guise of competition law, when there is no proper basis for doing so. There are also concerns about cases duplicating the many regulatory processes companies already face from consumer watchdogs, further weighing down businesses.

While it is important for consumers to be able to receive redress when things go wrong, the solution should not come at the expense of our courts and damaging the rest of the economy.