BT loses ‘opt in’ appeal in mass compensation claim

The Court of Appeal has dismissed BT’S call for customers to ‘opt in’ to be part of a mass compensation claim, which could see the company pay affected individuals £500 each.

BT was appealing against the decision in September by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) that gave the green light for a legal bid to seek compensation for

2.3 million customers who have been “overcharged” for their landline between 2015 and 2018.

The company argued that customers must be contacted and then sign up to the legal action in order to be eligible for a payout.

But Justin Le Patourel, who’s leading the case against BT as the head of Collective Action on Land Lines (CALL, www.callclaim.co.uk), claimed that this would greatly reduce the number of people who would sign up, making it “impossible” to get compensation for many of those affected.

He said: “Asking people to sign up to legal process which they don’t understand, and which has an uncertain outcome, would almost certainly have led to low levels of engagement”. He’s now planning to “proceed to a full trial”.

The case was prompted by an Ofcom investigation in 2016 which found that, although the wholesale costs of providing landlines to customers had fallen by at least 25 per cent, BT had actually increased its fees by 28 to 41 per cent.

It covers ‘voice-only’ customers, who had a BT landline between October 2015 and April 2018, but not a broadband service from BT or any other provider; and ‘split-purchase’ customers, who had a BT landline alongside broadband from any provider between October 2015 and now, but didn’t ‘bundle’ those services into a single, discounted package.

BT said it “strongly disagrees with the speculative claim being brought against us”, and that it will defend itself against any allegation that it doesn’t take seriously its responsibilities to customers.