LONDON (Reuters) -A bid to revive a 1.3 billion-pound ($1.7 billion) lawsuit against BT alleging the British telecoms company had overcharged millions of customers for fixed telephone lines was on Friday rejected by London’s Court of Appeal.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) ruled in favour of BT in December on a case which accused the former telecoms monopoly of excessively increasing prices.
Justin Le Patourel, who led the lawsuit on behalf of around 3.7 million BT customers, asked the Court of Appeal to grant permission to challenge that decision.
But his application was dismissed, spelling the end of a case which was the first opt-out collective action to come to trial under Britain’s class action-style regime.
The claimants had alleged BT charged unfairly high prices to customers who took a standalone fixed voice connection between 2009 and 2017, when regulator Ofcom said the company should reduce its charges, which BT did the following year.
BT, however, said the lawsuit was “profoundly flawed” and the CAT ruled that BT’s prices were not unfair.
Le Patourel said in a statement that he was “hugely disappointed” with the ruling, but added that he still believed the collective action regime has “great potential to deter large companies from breaking competition law”.
A BT Group spokesperson said: “We take our responsibilities to all of our customers very seriously and are pleased to see the courts dismiss this matter, bringing it to a resolution.”
($1 = 0.7598 pounds)
(Reporting by Sam Tobin; Editing by Catarina Demony and Paul Sandle)
