A recent landmark ruling by the Supreme Court on payment protection insurance (PPI) claims is an extremely positive development for PPI claimants. The judgment makes it easier for claimants to get time limits extended and bring claims, even where the defendant had no legal duty to disclose certain information. This post summarises the key points of the ruling and explains how it will impact PPI claims.
Background of the Case
The case involved Canada Square Operations Ltd who had specifically suggested and recommended a PPI policy to a customer, Mrs Potter, in 2006. Canada Square failed to disclose they would receive a 95% commission on the policy sale.
In 2018, Mrs Potter sued to recover the PPI payments once she discovered the undisclosed high commission. Canada Square argued the claim was out of time based on the 6-year limit.
Mrs Potter said the timeline should only run from her 2018 discovery about the commission, under section 32 of the Limitation Act 1980. The lower courts agreed with Mrs Potter that the case could proceed.
Key Points of Supreme Court Ruling
The Supreme Court upheld the lower court decisions, making some key findings:
- There does not need to be a legal duty to disclose information for “deliberate concealment” under section 32.
- Concealment is deliberate if the intention was to conceal the relevant fact.
- On the evidence, Canada Square did deliberately conceal the commission from Mrs Potter.
The Supreme Court judgment also clarified that recklessness by the defendant is not enough to prove deliberate concealment. The Supreme Court upheld one part of the appeal made by Canada Square finding that mere recklessness cannot amount to deliberate concealment for the purposes of Section 32 of the Limitation Act 1980.
This means claimants will need to show intent by the defendant to conceal facts from the customer, rather than just reckless behavior in failing to disclose important information related to the PPI policy sale. With the right evidence, claimants should be able to demonstrate facts were intentionally hidden.
Implications for PPI Claims
This judgment has wide-ranging implications for PPI claims. In the ruling, The Supreme Court advised that this decision will have wide ranging consequences for over 26,000 PPI Litigation cases within the Court where this is a live issue as well as other cases outside of the PPI Litigation realm.
It removes the key defence argument relied on by defendants – that there was no legal duty to disclose commission or other information to the claimant.
Our Analysis
A Claimant therefore does not have to prove that there was any legal duty on the part of a Defendant to disclose something. All that is required is that a Defendant deliberately does not advise the Claimant of something.
Now claimants simply need to find and present evidence that the facts were deliberately concealed, which will be easier based on lack of disclosure. This will make it much easier for claimants to get time limits extended and bring claims outside the normal 6-year window.
The ruling opens the door to many more claims and allows more claims to succeed. Claimants will find it easier to prove their PPI claims were mis-sold based on non-disclosure of commissions and other information.
Conclusion
This definitive and landmark Supreme Court judgment on PPI claims decisively removes a major barrier faced by claimants in proving their claim. Now the focus will be on whether key information like commissions was deliberately concealed. The ruling impacts thousands of ongoing PPI cases and opens the door to many more potential claims. For PPI claimants, it should now be easier to succeed with mis-selling claims.
