A settlement has been agreed in the long-running Car Delivery Charges class action for claimants who paid higher shipping fees for newly purchased or leased vehicles due to a cartel.
The agreed settlement, originally reached in December last year, was approved by the Competition Appeal Tribunal last week, following a hearing chaired by Bridget Lucas KC of Fountain Court. The total settlement value from the litigation was finalised at £92.75m.
The case, which was brought by class representative Mark McLaren and originally valued at £150m, concerned artificially inflated shipping fees on 17 million new vehicles imported into the UK between 2006 and 2015. The case affected buyers of cars and vans manufactured by major carmakers including Ford, Vauxhall, Volkswagen, Peugeot, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota, Citroën and Renault, none of whom were themselves involved in the cartel.
The European Commission had earlier found the defendants liable in an infringement decision adopted in 2018 – when the UK was still subject to EU law prior to Brexit in 2020 – and fined the shipping firms €395m.
These are the fourth and fifth settlements in the case, totalling £54m, following earlier settlements with ‘K’ Line (£12.75m), WWL/EUKOR (£24.5m) and CSAV (£1.5m) in January 2025 and December 2023.
The remaining two defendants, MOL and NYK, were the last of the five shipping companies to settle, following a nine-week trial that began in January last year.
McLaren, formerly of the consumers’ association Which?, instructed Scott+Scott to bring the litigation. He said the settlement was “a historic outcome, as it will be the first time that both UK consumers and businesses will be entitled to compensation through the opt-out regime”.
He added the case demonstrated that settlements could be achieved under the UK’s opt-out regime, which he said was “working exactly as intended.”
The settlement, he noted, provided claimants with “an effective and fair route” to recover compensation, adding that his priority was to maximise the take-up by all class members on distribution, via the Car Delivery Charges website.
Cian Mansfield, managing partner at Scott+Scott, called the settlement “a landmark outcome”, saying it highlighted “the importance of the opt-out regime in achieving access to justice for victims of anticompetitive conduct and in returning illegally earned profits to UK consumers and businesses”.
The class action was funded by Woodsford, a litigation funder. Its chief investment officer, Charlie Morris, said: “At a time when the Department for Business and Trade is reviewing the collective action regime, this action is the paradigm example of why the regime is so important. It has allowed thousands of UK consumers and businesses to receive meaningful compensation when they might not otherwise have been able to do so.”
He added: “Given that a significant proportion of these settlements is guaranteed to be paid to consumers, businesses and/or charity, this action can and should be recognised as a real success story.”
Scott+Scott instructed Sarah Ford KC and Sarah O’Keefe of Brick Court Chambers and Nicholas Gibson of Matrix Chambers, while MOL was defended by Arnold & Porter and NYK by Steptoe, which jointly instructed Brendan McGurk KC and Natalie Nguyen of Monckton Chambers.
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