Office Of Fair Trading Test Case

[Mistermind]

Information about the test case?

[Mistermind]

Zoot, my aunty put a request to have her claim unstayed as a financial hardhsip case - they bring in less than 10k a year and my uncle has been diagnosed with cancer, so she has had to stop work for a while. Their claim is 6k just with the charges.

 

Are the courts right to decline the lift?

 

This looks a case of demonstrable hardship.

 

Apart from the inflexible court system there is also the court of public opinion guided by fairness and common sense. Have you considered contacting the Financial Agony Uncle columns of the broadsheets while making it clear to the bank's bigwigs you are making such contact. In the face of adverse publicity the bloodsuckers may decide it is less trouble for them to offer an ex gratia settlement out of court.

 

Best if luck.

[Mistermind]

BBC NEWS | Business | OFT accuses banks over charges - latest Test Case report dated 29JAN2008

 

Each of 8 banks takes 2 days to make its case, followed by OFT rebuttal. BBC appears to update their report after every two court days.

[Mistermind]

OFT Test case

 

".....The OFT has refused to publish copies of the banks' defences on its website or to make them available in any other way for consumers. The OFT cites "confidentiality" reasons. However, Bob the Bankbuster is pleased to be able to make them available. To view them, click on the links below – the documents (pdfs) will download to your computer."

 

Abbey defence

Barclays defence

Clydesdale defence

Halifax (HBOS) defence

Royal Bank of Scotland (including NatWest) defence

Lloyds TSB defence

HSBC defence

[Mistermind]

Penalty Charges in USA

 

Clearly the US Supreme Court accepted the penalty charge as arbitrary "interest" regardless of the principle of proportionality embodied in the English precedent ruling on Dunlop v Garage 1910. Regardless of £20 penalty for going 20 pence overlimit.

 

Penalty Charges in Venice

 

The US ruling calls to mind another celebrated trial, that in the court of Venice in 1597, with His Grace the Duke of Venice presiding. Before him plaintiff Shylock the money-lender acting for himself, and counsel Portia acting for defendant Antonio.

 

The money-lender's penalty charge? A pound of flesh to be cut out of Antonio's body, as agreed in the contract, previously signed and properly witnessed.

 

 

 

PORTIA

Why, this bond is forfeit;

And lawfully by this the Jew may claim

A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off

Nearest the merchant's heart. Be merciful:

Take thrice thy money; bid me tear the bond.

 

SHYLOCK

When it is paid according to the tenor.

It doth appear you are a worthy judge;

You know the law, your exposition

Hath been most sound: I charge you by the law,

Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,

Proceed to judgment: by my soul I swear

There is no power in the tongue of man

To alter me: I stay here on my bond.

[Mistermind]

On 5th April 2005 the OFT announced that credit card institutions which did not reduce penalty charges to £12 (£16 for Egg) by deadline date 31st May 2005 might face court action mounted by the OFT. All credit cards complied by July 2005. This was a regulator ruling, not a court ruling. All court cases mounted by claimants over the past 2 years have been able to proceed because they were not in conflict with any OFT court action.

 

In April 2005 the OFT added that their £12 penalty ceiling also applied to banks and mortgagers, but all the banks and mortgagers laughed in OFT's face. Now virtually all Small Claims Courts have stayed cases of claimant-v-bank, because such cases would be seen as duplicating and some suggest contradicting the High Court verdict.

 

Credit card cases are currently able to continue unimpeded by stays, solely because the OFT has not yet announced a Test Case against credit card institutions.