Banks to Appeal: Latest News

MSE_Martin

The following text is about to be added to the Bank Charges News article...

STOP PRESS! Thur 22 May 08. Banks to appeal test case decision
After day one of the Case Management hearing in the bank charges test case… the situation seems to be as follows (some clarifications are expected on day two).
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· The Banks are appealing the ‘fairness rules’ decision. The High Court has agreed to allow the Banks to appeal the decision which said Bank Charges are subject to fairness rules. There aren’t full details yet, its likely to be a Court of Appeal case and should be heard before July ’08. However there could be further appeals to the House of Lords after that.

As well as the main fairness ruling against the banks, the judgement ruled in their favour on two smaller points – that bank charges aren’t penalties – and that most of the terms were clear. The OFT has decided not to appeal the first, and is considering appealing the second. It does however want to pursue banks historic terms and conditions, to see if any previous terms can be classed as a penalty, which will need to be carried out on a per bank basis, except for possibly Nationwide which is being assessed separately.

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· The OFT will continue to look at whether charges are fair. As the court ruling said bank charges are subject to fairness rules, the next stage of the test case will be for the OFT to decide if charges are unfair; and it will carry on doing this regardless of the appeal. It has stated it is not yet ready to make a decision on this due to the scale of the task involved yet the judge asked for further clarification in July.

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· Next key date 7 July 08. The case management process will continue in July to consider whether previous contracts can be classed as penalties and how the OFT intends to progress if the original judgement, that terms can be considered as unfair, continues to stand.<O:p></O:p>

A full update of this entire article will be included in next weeks free weekly e-mail<O:p</O:p

nickmack

MSE_Martin wrote: »

As well as the main fairness ruling against the banks, the judgement ruled in their favour on two smaller points – that bank charges aren’t penalties – and that most of the terms were clear. The OFT has decided not to appeal the first, and is considering appealing the second. It does however want to pursue banks historic terms and conditions, to see if any previous terms can be classed as a penalty, which will need to be carried out on a per bank basis, except for possibly Nationwide which is being assessed separately.

I think this is quite important. If the banks are intent on stringing this out as soon as possible (and why wouldn't they - the waiver protects them from current/new claims) the OFT need to pursue them on all points.

There was never much chance of the current T&C's being considered as penalties (the banks ensured that when they changed them) but many people incurred charges under historic T&C's which I think have a chance of being considered penalties.

It will be interesting to see what grounds the OFT give for appealing the clarity of T&C's if they decide to go ahead with this.

The OFT have alot of work to do in convincing the consumer they can live up to the tagline on their site:

"The OFT is responsible for making markets work well for consumers. We achieve this by promoting and protecting consumer interests throughout the UK, while ensuring that businesses are fair and competitive."

krisskross

Sorry if i am being a bit thick but does this mean that charges made under the new, revised T&Cs from the banks will stand? And that only charges made on the old T&Cs will be considered for refund?