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A plain-English guide to the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT)
If you’ve been reading about consumer claims on Join the Claim, you may have come across the Competition Appeal Tribunal — usually shortened to the CAT.
The CAT is a specialist court that deals with competition law and certain other economic disputes. Importantly for consumers, it is also where the UK’s opt-out competition collective actions are heard.
These cases can involve millions of people and claims worth hundreds of millions — or even billions — of pounds. But many of the people who may be affected don’t know the claims exist. That makes raising awareness an important part of making the system work for consumers.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal is a specialist judicial body that deals mainly with competition law.
Put simply, competition law is designed to help markets work fairly. It covers issues such as companies fixing prices, abusing a dominant position or entering agreements that restrict competition.
The CAT hears a range of cases involving these rules.
Some are disputes between businesses or challenges to decisions made by competition authorities. Others involve claims for compensation from people or businesses that say they have lost money because competition law was broken.
The CAT also has responsibilities in other areas.
For consumers, however, one part of its work is particularly significant: collective actions.
A collective action allows a claim to be brought on behalf of a group of people who have been affected by the same or similar issue.
Instead of each person bringing their own case, their claims can be dealt with together.
This can be particularly important where individual losses are relatively small, but the total impact across thousands — or even millions — of consumers is significant.
You don’t have to fight alone. If a company’s wrongdoing affected you and others, a group claim could help you seek compensation.
Imagine a company behaved in a way that meant ten million people each paid £20 more than they should have.
For each individual, taking legal action to recover £20 would make little practical sense. Across ten million people, however, the alleged loss would amount to £200 million.
Collective actions provide a way of dealing with that problem.
Instead of requiring millions of consumers to bring separate cases, certain competition law claims can be combined and brought collectively before the CAT.
This can make it possible to challenge alleged harm that might otherwise go unaddressed simply because each person’s individual loss is too small to make a separate court case worthwhile.
Opt-out collective actions
There are two types of collective proceedings that can be brought before the CAT:
While you don’t need to sign up to be included in an opt-out claim, if the case succeeds you may need to register at the end to receive compensation.
In this guide, we focus mainly on opt-out claims because they can include millions of consumers who may not even know a case is being brought on their behalf.
Billions in compensation may be available in UK opt-out claims. Don’t miss out on your share. Find out more in this handy guide.
The CAT’s opt-out collective action regime is currently limited to competition law claims.
These can include allegations involving:
Recent and ongoing collective proceedings have involved areas such as mobile phones, app stores, payment cards, online marketplaces and gaming. That is why some CAT cases involve everyday products and services used by millions of people.
The allegations and eligibility criteria are different in every case, and the fact that a claim has been brought does not mean the defendant has broken the law.
Unless and until liability is established, allegations remain allegations.
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For collective proceedings brought before the CAT, whether opt-in or opt-out, the process starts with a proposed class representative.
This is the person or organisation seeking to bring the case on behalf of the wider group affected.
That wider group is known as the class.
For example, a class might include people who bought a particular product or used a particular service during a specified period.
The proposed class representative applies to the CAT for permission to bring the claims collectively on behalf of the class.
But filing a case does not mean it will automatically be allowed to proceed.
Before collective proceedings can go ahead, the CAT must decide whether the claims can be dealt with together.
If it decides they can, it makes a Collective Proceedings Order (CPO).
This stage is known as certification.
Among other things, the CAT looks at whether the claims have enough in common. It also decides whether the proposed class representative is suitable to represent the wider group.
If a CPO is granted, it sets out important details including:
Certification is an important hurdle. Some applications are challenged by defendants and can involve substantial legal argument before the main case has even begun.
Once a CPO has been granted, potential class members must be notified.
The CAT approves how this should happen and what information the notice should contain. The aim is to explain the case, who may be included and what rights class members have, including how to opt in or out where relevant.
How people are notified will depend on the case. Notices may appear on a dedicated claim website, through online advertising, in newspapers or other publications, or through other channels approved by the CAT. In some cases, organisations may also be able to contact potentially affected people directly.
Depending on the proceedings, this can involve:
Large collective actions can be extremely complex, so this stage may take several years.
Generally, no. One of the main features of collective proceedings is that the class representative runs the case on behalf of the class.
Whether the proceedings are opt-in or opt-out, individual class members do not normally have to attend hearings or personally argue their case before the Tribunal.
Once you are part of the class, you would not normally need to play an active role in the litigation itself.
There are broadly two ways a successful case may reach the compensation stage.
In an opt-in collective action, class members have already actively joined the proceedings. This means there is already a record of the people or businesses taking part.
If the parties want to settle before the deadline for joining the claim has passed, the class representative needs the CAT’s permission.
Once compensation becomes available, arrangements are made for it to be distributed to eligible class members. They may still need to provide information or follow particular steps before payment is made, depending on how the scheme works.
The position is different for opt-out collective actions. Any collective settlement must be approved by the CAT. The Tribunal considers whether the proposed settlement is just and reasonable before approving it.
If compensation becomes available, being automatically included in the class does not necessarily mean you will be paid automatically.
Depending on the arrangements for the particular case, eligible class members may need to register or provide information before they can receive their share.
This is one reason public awareness remains so important.
Collective proceedings can be difficult to find if you are not actively following legal news or don’t know what to search for. That matters for both opt-in and opt-out claims, but in different ways.
In an opt-in claim, you have to actively join the proceedings. If you don’t know the claim exists, you could miss the opportunity to take part.
In an opt-out claim, the challenge is different.
Eligible UK consumers can be included automatically, which means they may be represented by a claim without ever having heard about it.
That becomes particularly important if the case succeeds. Depending on how compensation is distributed, eligible class members may need to come forward or provide information before they can receive payment. If they never hear about the compensation process, they can miss out.
In some historic cases, only a small percentage of eligible individuals came forward to claim compensation after settlement. That means compensation goes unclaimed and people miss out on money they are entitled to.
In Gutmann v Stagecoach, the claim covered an estimated 1.4 million rail passengers and a settlement of up to £25 million was approved in 2024. But only a small proportion of the available compensation was claimed. Around £3.8 million was subsequently directed to the Access to Justice Foundation.
Without wider efforts to raise awareness, some people may never realise that a claim affects them
At Join the Claim, our role is to make collective actions easier to find and understand. That means explaining what claims exist, how they work and what steps — if any — people need to take.
Because collective justice only works if the people it is designed to help know about it.
Recent research in Scotland shows just how big the understanding gap can be. While 62% of people surveyed had heard of collective proceedings, only 34% said they understood how they work.
Yes, certain CAT decisions can be challenged.
Depending on the type of decision and the legal route available, an appeal may go to the Court of Appeal in England and Wales, the Court of Session in Scotland or the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland. Some cases can ultimately reach the UK Supreme Court.
Appeals have already played an important role in shaping the UK’s collective action regime.
They are also one reason a major collective action can take many years to move from the original claim to a final outcome.
Collective actions can involve complicated questions of law and economics, very large volumes of evidence, and classes containing millions of people.
There can also be disputes at several stages of the proceedings — from certification and funding arrangements to liability, the calculation of damages and distribution.
Appeals can add further time.
This means there can be a significant gap between first hearing about a claim and finding out whether compensation will ever become available.
Possibly. The CAT regime has helped establish opt-out collective actions as an important part of the UK’s consumer redress landscape.
But its scope is limited. The collective action provisions used in the CAT apply to competition law claims.
There is now growing discussion about whether similar ways of bringing claims collectively should be available for a wider range of disputes.
Two developments are particularly important: one in Scotland and another in England and Wales.
Scottish law already allows for both opt-in and opt-out group proceedings. But, in practice, Scotland’s wider group claims system currently operates on an opt-in basis.
That could change. Scottish court rule-makers are considering changes that would allow opt-out proceedings to be used more widely.
Unlike the CAT regime, which is limited to competition law, the Scottish approach could potentially cover a much wider range of civil claims.
In England and Wales, the Law Commission is looking at whether a new consumer class actions regime should be introduced.
The review will consider whether a new system could make it easier for consumers to seek compensation collectively, as well as the potential risks and how any new regime might work.
If a broader regime is eventually introduced, it could potentially open the door to collective claims in areas that currently fall outside the CAT system, such as data breaches and other forms of widespread consumer harm.
If wider opt-out systems are introduced, more people could potentially benefit from collective claims without having to sign up at the start.
It could also mean opt-out claims become available for a wider range of problems, rather than being largely limited to competition law through the CAT.
But nothing has changed yet. Any new system would need rules setting out which claims are covered, who can bring them and how they would work.
For now, the CAT remains the main route for UK opt-out collective actions.
CAT proceedings are public, but keeping up with the latest claims is not always easy.
A single collective action can generate years of judgments, orders, hearings, appeals and technical legal documents. For someone who simply wants to know “Does this affect me?”, the important information can be difficult to find.
That is where Join the Claim comes in.
We track major collective actions, explain developments in plain English and help consumers find trusted and official information about claims that could affect them.
Our aim is to make a part of the justice system that can feel remote and complicated easier to understand.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) is a specialist judicial body. It hears cases involving competition law as well as certain other economic and regulatory matters. Its decisions are legally binding and certain decisions can be appealed.
An opt-out claim allows a case to be brought on behalf of a group of people without everyone having to sign up individually. In CAT opt-out proceedings, eligible UK class members are generally included automatically unless they choose to opt out.
Each claim has its own eligibility criteria, known as the class definition. This might depend on what you bought or which service you used, where you lived and when you were a customer. You may be included even if you have never registered for the claim.
Not usually to be included if you are an eligible UK class member. However, if the claim succeeds or settles, you may need to register or provide information to receive compensation. The exact process depends on the individual case.
A Collective Proceedings Order, or CPO, is the order the CAT makes when it allows claims to proceed collectively. Among other things, it defines who is included in the class, which claims are covered and whether the proceedings will operate on an opt-in or opt-out basis.
Generally, no. The class representative runs the case on behalf of the wider group. Whether you are part of an opt-in or opt-out collective action, you would not normally need to attend hearings or personally argue your case before the CAT.
Not necessarily. Being automatically included in an opt-out claim does not always mean compensation will be paid automatically. Depending on the arrangements for the case, you may need to register or provide information to show that you are eligible for payment.
There is no set timeframe. Large collective actions can take several years because they may involve certification, complex evidence, hearings, a trial and appeals. A settlement can sometimes bring a case to an end sooner, although opt-out collective settlements must be approved by the CAT.
Yes, certain CAT decisions can be appealed. Depending on the case, an appeal may go to the Court of Appeal, Court of Session or Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland. Some cases can ultimately reach the UK Supreme Court.
No. The CAT’s collective proceedings regime is specifically for competition law claims. Other types of group litigation can be brought through different parts of the UK court system, but different rules apply.
Join the Claim tracks major opt-out collective actions and explains them in plain English. Find claims that could affect you and follow links to official claim information.
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Join the Claim is not a law firm. We connect individuals with top law firms for group or individual claims, and our service is free to use. While we may receive a fee from the law firms we introduce you to, this will not affect your costs or compensation. We are not responsible for the advice or services provided by these firms. Please note, nothing on this website is legal advice, and while we check claim eligibility, we cannot guarantee a law firm will accept a case.
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