Tribunal Certifies Claims Against UK Mobile Operators

Tribunal Certifies Claims

On 14 November 2025, the Competition Appeal Tribunal certified our client, Justin Gutmann’s collective proceedings claims against the UK’s mobile network operators (Vodafone/Three, BT/EE, and Telefonica/O2) and may now proceed to trial.

Mr Gutmann alleges that the mobile network operators have abused their dominant market positions by overcharging loyal customers who did not immediately terminate their handset and airtime services contracts at the end of their minimum contractual terms. Essentially, it is claimed that customers’ charges were not reduced appropriately once their handsets had been paid for in full, causing those customers to suffer loss. The proceedings seek compensation of approximately £3 billion on behalf of between 2.3 million and 4.8 million contract customers.

In the judgment, the Tribunal was clearly satisfied with Mr Justin Gutmann’s suitability to act as the Class Representative in the proceedings; and expressed surprise at the defendants’ unparticularised post hearing written arguments with respect to his funding arrangements. We are pleased that the Tribunal took a strong stance to the defendants’ arguments.

The judgment also canvassed two important limitation questions:

1. The Tribunal refused to strike out claims that arose between 1 October 2015 and 8 March 2017 to which the Limitation Act 1980 applies. The Tribunal noted that the defendants’ arguments, which were largely factual in nature, were not suitable to be heard on a strike-out basis.
2. Unfortunately, Mr Gutmann’s statutory interpretation arguments to apply the Limitation Act 1980 to stand-alone claims that arose prior to 1 October 2015 were struck out. The Tribunal concluded that those claims were subject to Rule 30 of the 2003 Tribunal Rules, and they had to be brought within 2 years of the claims arising. In practice, this means those claims cannot be brought before the Tribunal under its collective proceedings’ regime.

Mr Gutmann, and Charles Lyndon, are delighted to have had these claims certified and we look forward to proceeding to the next stages of the litigation.

We would like to congratulate Justin Gutmann on yet another successfully certified claim in the Competition Appeal Tribunal, and thank Rhodri Thompson KC, Nichola Gibson and James White for their expert advocacy and support throughout. We would also like to thank Litigation Capital Management (LCM) for their continued support.