The High Court has dismissed a judicial review brought by litigation funder Innsworth Capital against the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), confirming how the £200 million settlement in the long-running Mastercard collective action should be shared out. In a judgment handed down on 10 June 2026, Lord Justice Males and Mr Justice Morris upheld the CAT's award of approximately £68 million to the funder, rejecting Innsworth's argument that it was entitled to around £179 million from the settlement pot.
Background to the claim
The action, led by former financial ombudsman Walter Merricks as class representative, was one of the largest consumer claims ever pursued in the United Kingdom. It was brought on behalf of more than 44 million consumers who alleged that Mastercard's multilateral interchange fees had inflated prices across the economy. The original claim was valued at roughly £14 billion including interest, but was resolved through a £200 million settlement, a fraction of the headline figure. The case has been closely watched as a test of the opt-out collective proceedings regime introduced under UK competition law.
How the settlement was divided
Under the CAT's approach, £100 million of the settlement was allocated to class members, with individuals entitled to claim a minimum of £45 each. A further tranche of between £41 million and £46 million was set aside to reimburse Innsworth's expenditure on the litigation. The remaining pot was earmarked for the funder's profit, additional payments to class members and a residual sum destined for the Access to Justice Foundation. Innsworth contended that this framework left it significantly under-compensated relative to the risk it had assumed in financing the case.
The grounds of challenge
Innsworth advanced three principal grounds. It argued that the CAT had misread Australian authority on the calculation of funder returns, that it had overlooked proceeds remaining after cost reimbursement, and that it had wrongly declined to treat a payment obligation connected to Colfax as a recoverable expense. The court was not persuaded on any of these points and upheld the tribunal's original assessment. Counsel for Mr Merricks characterised the outcome as "complete vindication" of the class representative's position.
Reaction from the funding market
The ruling has prompted debate about the appetite of third-party funders for future collective claims before the CAT. Commentators suggested the decision could dampen enthusiasm for such actions, warning that it may temper funders' willingness to back competition claims of this kind. The judgment reinforces the tribunal's discretion in balancing returns to funders against recoveries for the represented class.
More broadly, the decision underscores the central role of the CAT in policing the economics of collective proceedings and signals that funder expectations will be tested against the tribunal's assessment of what is fair to consumers. As the opt-out regime continues to mature, the balance struck between rewarding those who finance large-scale litigation and delivering meaningful redress to class members is likely to remain a defining question for practitioners, funders and defendants across the cross-border disputes landscape.
