UK Law and Practice Contributed by: Samantha Ward, Ben Jasper, Oliver Carroll and Bethany Downey, Clifford Chance LLP
of hurdles along the way, with issues around limita - tion, causation and pass-on. In December 2024, a settlement agreement was reached. The litiga - tion funder objected to the settlement. It argued that the settlement sum was too low and that Mr Merricks should have pressed on, seeking to exert greater pressure on Mastercard to pay a higher amount. Despite this, the CAT found it to be just and reasonable. In May 2025, the Tribunal ruled on the proposed distribution of the GBP200 million. The Tribunal approved the proposal of Mr Merricks and Mastercard that: (i) GBP100 million would be ring-fenced for class members; (ii) GBP46 million would be ring-fenced as a minimum return to the funder (roughly equating to its deployed capital); and (iii) the remaining, depending on class take-up, would enable the funder a profit return, with the rest paid to charity. Despite strenuous objections from the funders, the CAT commended the plan which it found sought to achieve the maximum take-up of a reasonable sum by class members.
(Enforceability) Bill, which sought to reverse the decision of the judgment on third-party litigation funding (R (on the application of PACCAR Inc) v Competition Appeal Tribunal [2023] UKSC 28). While this bill was ultimately not passed prior to the 2024 General Election, the Civil Justice Council 2025 review has advised that this decision should be reversed, and so we await to see if legislative reform will be introduced to address this. Beyond the collective proceedings regime, the anti - trust litigation regime continues to develop strongly. For example, a critical judgment developing this regime was issued in July 2025 in the Court of Appeal in Phones 4u Limited v EE Limited and others [2025] EWCA Civ 869 which provided guidance on how competition law should deal with passive recipients of anti-competitive approaches by competitors, and the proper approach to determining related causation issues.
• Funding: In March 2024, the UK government announced the Litigation Funding Agreements
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