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Applications to lift stays In Devon and Cornwall, all bank charges claims have been put on stay including those claims in respect of business accounts and credit card accounts. I have made a few applications to lift stays as follows. 1) RBS business account. A long running saga. The claim was issued on 2 March 2007. After the filing of the usual Allocation Questionnaire, Truro County Court put the claim on stay for a month "so that the parties could attempt to reach a settlement". This was the usual tactic of the court at this time – anything other than actually get on and do the job that we had paid them to do. RBS did not settle, so finally the court set a hearing date of 23 August. Then the test case was announced and Truro Court put this claim on stay just 9 days before the scheduled hearing. I submitted an application to have the stay lifted. Much to my surprise, RBS solicitors (Cobbetts) wrote a letter of support saying that they felt that the test case was not relevant to this claim. The court then had little option but to lift the stay. A new court hearing date was set for 13 December. Then the judge suddenly decided he was going to dig out the papers and have another look at them. He made an order on 29 October saying that he was reconsidering the stay and that we should make representations by 12 November. I submitted essentially the same papers as before. This time Cobbetts sent in a different letter. In essence, the letter said, "If we win the test case, we will argue that the same principles apply to business accounts; if we lose the test case, we will argue that the principles are different." A cunning ploy worthy of Baldrick! So the judge then revoked his previous order and imposed another stay on 20 November. On 23 November, I had a phone call from Cobbetts offering to settle the claim. Within a few days, they had sent a cheque for the full amount including interest from March to November at 8%. 2) Abbey personal account. Claim issued on 24 June. Abbey filed a defence in which they said that the charges were imposed as a result of a "breach of contract". The court imposed a stay on the claim. I submitted an application to lift the stay on the grounds that the test case was irrelevant. The whole point of the test case is that the banks are arguing that the charges do not result from a breach of contract but are imposed as a fee for services. Therefore, by admitting in their defence that there had been a breach of contract, Abbey could not rely on this alternative defence. At the stay hearing, the judge (most senior judge in Devon and Cornwall) dismissed my arguments as being pettyfogging and refused the application. 3) Lloyds business account. Claim issued 24 September. Court put it on stay before Lloyds had even filed a defence. I made an application to lift the stay on the grounds that business accounts are not covered by the OFT test case. The judge dismissed the application. Then a couple of weeks later, Lloyds settled the claim anyway. 4) Lloyds business account. Claim issued 5 October. Court put it on stay. But then Lloyds paid up anyway a couple of days before Christmas. 5) Halifax credit card account. Claim issued 7 November. Court put it on stay. But Halifax settled it anyway. 6) Barclays credit card account. Claim issued 24 October. Court put it on stay. I wrote to Barclays and said that I was about to make an application to lift the stay. Would they like to tell me whether or not they felt that the test case was relevant? They did not answer my question, but they did then settle the claim in full. So what lessons can we learn from this? The courts, in this part of the country at least, don't want to hear any claims for bank charges irrespective of whether or not the test case is relevant. They will not listen to any arguments as to why business accounts and credit card accounts are not covered by the test case. However, the banks themselves seem to want to settle business account and credit card claims even though they are on stay. I can only assume that they want to keep some clear blue water between these accounts and personal current accounts. Presumably because they think that they are going to lose the test case and they do not want these other accounts dragged into it? So, if you have a claim for a business account or credit card account, it may be worthwhile applying to have the stay lifted. It may provoke the bank into settling even if the court refuse the application. However, note that the fee payable for such an application is £75 and you cannot add this to the claim amount. |
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Published and promoted by Bob Egerton, TR2 4RS |
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