Visa v CICC I [2024] EWCA Civ 218

Commercial and Interregional Card Claims I Limited brought collective proceedings against Visa Inc and Visa Europe in the Competition Appeal Tribunal, alleging that multilateral interchange fees charged on card transactions were anti-competitive. The proceedings were among the largest and most significant collective actions before the CAT, involving claims on behalf of millions of consumers and businesses who paid inflated prices as a result of excessive interchange fees. The litigation was supported by third-party funding, and following the Supreme Court’s PACCAR decision, the funding arrangements were revised. The revised LFAs covering both the opt-out and opt-in elements of the claim adopted multiplier-based return structures. Visa challenged the enforceability of these agreements, arguing that the revised structure was merely cosmetic and that the funder’s return remained, in economic substance, a function of the damages recovered. The CAT rejected this challenge, applying the reasoning it had developed in Alex Neill and would subsequently apply in McLaren and BSV Claims.

The Tribunal held that the revised agreements were enforceable, concluding that a multiplier of capital committed was conceptually and legally distinct from a percentage of damages. The inclusion of a cap by reference to total damages did not transform the agreement into a DBA, as the cap served a protective function rather than determining the quantum of the funder’s return. The Visa v CICC decision was particularly significant because of the scale of the underlying proceedings and because it became one of four cases subsequently joined for appeal to the Court of Appeal. Together with Sony v Neill, Apple v Kent, and Apple v Gutmann, it formed part of the consolidated appeal heard by Lord Justice Flaux, which resulted in the Court of Appeal’s landmark endorsement of the CAT’s approach in Sony v Neill [2025] EWCA Civ 841.