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Extract from Judgment PARA 331
I have read this section and those around it a few times now, The Banks have really come unstuck here because I believe they were trying to argue that the 1999 regulations displaced Common Law wrt penalty charge issues. If the Banks had won the UTCCR argument and the dispalcement argument then the OFT would have lost everything.
However, it has really worked against the Banks. It appears that the Judge believes that the UTCCR regulations actually afford BETTER protection for the Consumer than the Common law. Whilst this is great from the present and future terms and conditions point of view it doesnt really help those with claims stuck in the Court system, as we will no doubt have to wait for the appeal process to work its way through.
I have a very strong feeling ( tempered with a bit of hope ) that the Judge is going to provide some assistance here by saying that the Common law aspects actually do apply for some Historic terms, he will hopefully spell these out at the CMC in May and allow the County Courts to process claims that argue on this basis. This would effectivly free up the majority of claims currently stuck in the County Court system. There could also be some very interesting exceptions for those with basic accounts as these have been deliberatley excluded from the judgment, considering that the basic accounts are generally those used by those of us with less financial clout ( so to speak ) then this would be most welcome.
Budgie
I have read this section and those around it a few times now, The Banks have really come unstuck here because I believe they were trying to argue that the 1999 regulations displaced Common Law wrt penalty charge issues. If the Banks had won the UTCCR argument and the dispalcement argument then the OFT would have lost everything.
However, it has really worked against the Banks. It appears that the Judge believes that the UTCCR regulations actually afford BETTER protection for the Consumer than the Common law. Whilst this is great from the present and future terms and conditions point of view it doesnt really help those with claims stuck in the Court system, as we will no doubt have to wait for the appeal process to work its way through.
I have a very strong feeling ( tempered with a bit of hope ) that the Judge is going to provide some assistance here by saying that the Common law aspects actually do apply for some Historic terms, he will hopefully spell these out at the CMC in May and allow the County Courts to process claims that argue on this basis. This would effectivly free up the majority of claims currently stuck in the County Court system. There could also be some very interesting exceptions for those with basic accounts as these have been deliberatley excluded from the judgment, considering that the basic accounts are generally those used by those of us with less financial clout ( so to speak ) then this would be most welcome.
Budgie
