UK Supreme Court Blocks $3.6 Billion Mass Lawsuit Against Global Banks

Post by : Saif Nasser

Some of the world’s biggest banks have won a major legal battle in the United Kingdom after the Supreme Court blocked a huge lawsuit worth $3.6 billion. The case accused several global banks of cheating customers by secretly manipulating foreign exchange, or forex, markets more than a decade ago.

The banks involved include JPMorgan, Citigroup, UBS, Barclays, MUFG, and NatWest. The lawsuit was led by Phillip Evans, a former senior official at Britain’s Competition Markets Authority, on behalf of thousands of asset managers, pension funds, and financial institutions.

The legal action was based on earlier findings by the European Commission. In 2019, the Commission fined several banks more than 1 billion euros after finding that traders had shared confidential information and worked together to influence currency prices between 2007 and 2013.

Because the foreign exchange market is one of the largest in the world, even small changes in prices can affect billions of dollars in trades. The claim argued that investors and institutions lost large sums of money due to this unfair behaviour.

The case has had a long and complex journey through the courts. In 2022, the Competition Appeal Tribunal blocked the lawsuit from moving forward as a mass, or “opt-out,” claim. This would have allowed people to be included automatically unless they chose to leave the case.

In 2023, the Court of Appeal revived the case, giving claimants fresh hope. However, the banks challenged that decision at the Supreme Court. On Thursday, the top court ruled in favour of the banks, restoring the earlier decision and stopping the case from going ahead as a mass lawsuit.

Over the years, global banks have already paid more than $11 billion in fines to authorities in the United States, Europe, and Britain for past forex misconduct. However, this ruling protects them from facing one of the largest private compensation claims linked to those events in the UK.

Legal experts say the decision sets an important precedent. It raises the bar for large group claims in competition cases and may make it harder for future mass lawsuits to proceed without clear proof of individual losses.

For now, the ruling brings relief to the banks, while leaving investors and institutions with fewer legal options to seek compensation through the UK courts.