Representative legal actions: speak to our Group Action experts

Representative legal actions are matters that our Group Action Lawyers can take forward on a No Win, No Fee basis for eligible claimants.

We have a significant degree of experience in fighting for the rights of people involved in group and multi-party action cases, working in this area of law for over a decade. Our expert team is available to speak to you about any potential new action, or joining a current action, and all you need to do is contact us here now.

What are representative legal actions?

Representative legal actions are compensation cases that typically involve one person who is affected by a particular issue becoming the formal legal representative to set a precedent for a number of other individuals.

These types of actions are usually “opt-out” actions, which means that, if you do not “opt-out” of being involved in the action, you may be eligible to receive compensation automatically. When it comes to Group Litigation Orders (GLO), which are typically used in England and Wales for large group and multi-party cases, it is usually an “opt-in” system, which means you normally must appoint a solicitor and formally sign up to the legal action. “Opt-out” is where you, instead, confirm if you do not wish to be a part of any settlement.

The key thing in an “opt-out” situation is that there only really needs to be one representative whose case can be tried to set the precedent for everybody else, in many cases. If the case is successful, that precedent could then apply to everybody else, which can then allow compensation to be issued to anybody who is eligible.

These kinds of representative legal actions have been quite common in the US for some time, as their class action system is typically based on an “opt-out” method. In England and Wales, not every type of group or multi-party case can become representative legal actions but, for those that can, this can be an efficient way of pursuing large cases.

Our Group and Multi-Party legal experience

Including the dozens of separate emissions actions, we have launched over 100 group and multi-party action type cases, and have been working in this area of law for longer than a decade. A number of those are the emissions matters, and a number of them are data breach matters, given that there have been a lot of large privacy events in the last few years.

We have a lot of experience representing people in significant medical scandals, such as the PIP matters and the metal-on-metal hip implant issues, and vaginal and pelvic mesh cases. In terms of data breaches, we have represented people in the infamous 56 Dean Street Clinic Leak of 2015, as well as the Equifax hack of 2017, and the British Airways data breaches of 2018.

When it comes to emissions actions, we were the first law firm in England and Wales to formally issue High Court proceedings against Volkswagen in January 2016, and we were later appointed to the Steering Committee. As such, we are pioneers in group and multi-party action law, having been at the forefront of some of the biggest cases of this nature, including the emissions matters and privacy compensation cases.

Speak to our team for advice today

If you have been affected by a matter that could become a representative legal action, we would like to hear from you. You can speak to our legal team for free, no-obligation legal advice, and this can apply to consumer action law, competition law, privacy matters, and more.