A further judgment in this ongoing litigation was handed down by Mr. Justice Andrew Smith on Wednesday 8th October following a three-day hearing in July. The judgment considered certain historic terms and conditions used by the banks between 2001 and 2007 and concluded that most were incapable of amounting to penalties at common law.
As the premier banking set and the winner of the “Banking Set of the Year” award at the recent Chambers Bar Awards, Fountain Court Chambers continues to be heavily involved in these much-publicised proceedings, with 10 members of chambers currently acting for parties on both sides of the proceedings as follows:
- OFT: Richard Coleman (instructed by the OFT in-house team).
- Barclays: Andrew Mitchell and Simon Atrill (instructed by Colin Passmore, Simmons & Simmons).
- HBOS: Timothy Howe QC and James McClelland (instructed by Marc Florent, Allen & Overy).
- HSBC: Patrick Goodall (instructed by Simon Orton, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer).
- Lloyds TSB: Bankim Thanki QC, Richard Handyside, Edward Levey and James Duffy (instructed by Andrea Monks/Philip Parish, Lovells).
The next stage in the litigation is the hearing of the banks’ appeal to the Court of Appeal in relation to the earlier judgment, handed down in April 2008, concerning whether the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 applied to bank overdraft charges. That hearing is due to commence on 28 October 2008.
