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On 3 December 2024, Walter Merricks (the Class Representative) reached a settlement agreement with Mastercard in which Mastercard agreed to pay £200 million (the “Settlement Sum”) to the Class Representative to distribute to members of the class (referred to as “Represented Persons”). Mastercard agreed the settlement without any admission of liability. A settlement of collective proceedings requires the approval of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (the “Tribunal”) who will only approve the settlement if it considers it to be “just and reasonable” and in the best interests of the class. Mr Merricks and Mastercard filed a joint application with the Tribunal asking it to approve the settlement on 17 January 2025.
The Tribunal considered the settlement at a hearing that took place from 19 to 21 February 2025. Represented Persons were entitled to make written / oral submissions to the Tribunal on the settlement terms, but no Represented Persons chose to do so. Mr Merricks’ litigation funder was given permission by the Tribunal to intervene and to put forward its arguments in opposition to the settlement. Having heard all the arguments, the Tribunal approved the settlement, stating that “we have no doubt that the settlement at £200 million, on the terms proposed, is just and reasonable”. The Tribunal is expected to hand down its written judgment along with the collective settlement approval order in the course of March 2025. The written ruling will set out how the Settlement Sum is to be distributed to Represented Persons, along with what amount the funder is to receive as its return for funding the claim, and whether any sum is to be paid to a charity in the event that not all the Settlement Sum allocated to Represented Persons is taken up.
The proposals for distribution of the Settlement Sum to Represented Persons is summarised in the Settlement Hearing Notice which can be found here. You may be entitled to make a claim for a share of the Settlement Sum, or to opt in or out of the settlement, once the collective settlement approval order is formally made by the Tribunal.
The Documents page contains the full non-confidential versions of the documents that were filed with the Tribunal on 17 January 2025, including: (i) the joint settlement application by Mr Merricks and Mastercard; (ii) the settlement agreement; and (iii) the witness statement of Mr Merricks setting out why he considers the settlement to be just and reasonable; and Mr Merricks’ evidence filed in response to the litigation funder’s statement of intervention.