News

Bank Charges Test Case

Merrill Legal Solutions has started 2008 by providing litigation support services to the high profile test case into bank charges being brought by the Office of Fair Trading (“OFT”). In 2007, the OFT launched an investigation into the fairness of bank charges for unauthorised overdrafts on personal accounts. The investigation has culminated in a test case being brought to the High Court, a preliminary hearing of which started in January this year.

The case involves seven banks and one building society who have been selected as being representative of the UK personal banking market. With such a large number of parties, this is one of the biggest cases that Merrill has tackled, and involves supplying both the OFT and the banks’ legal teams with real-time transcripts of the proceedings displayed both on laptops installed in the hearing room and at a number of client offices via secure remote connections.

Jayne Perry, UK Managing Director of Merrill Legal Solutions, says: “This case is a big achievement for us. The complexity and number of parties involved has been a challenge and our team has coped admirably. We were keen to be involved in such an important test case, the final outcome of which could bring a significant change to the UK current account market.”

For more information on our litigation support services, please contact Drew Macaulay on 020 7421 9269 or by e-mail to:
andrew.macaulay@merrillcorp.com.