OFT FAIRNESS INVESTIGATION - LEAVE TO APPEAL TO HOUSE OF LORDS - April 2009
Seven banks and one building society (the "Banks") are engaged in a High Court test case with the Office of Fair Trading ("OFT") to clarify the law in relation to unarranged overdraft charges. The test case process was initiated by the Banks and the OFT, to bring clarity to an issue which is of concern to a large number of bank customers. You can read about the previous stages in the test case by following the links below.
On 1 April 2009, the Banks were granted leave to appeal to the House of Lords and will progress the appeal as swiftly as possible.
On 3 April 2009, the OFT announced changes to its investigation into unarranged overdraft charges by focusing on the terms of three banks in particular: Lloyds TSB, HSBC and Clydesdale.
The OFT believe that the terms of the three selected banks provide the best representative selection of all the Banks’ unarranged overdraft charging terms, and therefore the outcome of this more focused investigation will be relevant to the assessment of other Banks’ terms.
This is the next step in the OFT's ongoing investigation into overdraft charges. The OFT believe that by looking at a representative sample of bank terms and conditions, the investigation process will be streamlined and shortened. Abbey and the other Banks certainly welcome this initiative and will continue to cooperate fully and constructively to the ongoing inquiry.
As previously agreed with the Financial Ombudsman Service and FSA, customer complaints relating to unarranged overdraft charges will remain on hold. The Court of Appeal has recommended that County and Sheriff Court cases relating to unarranged overdraft charges should remain on hold.
Please continue to refer to our website for further information. We will continue to post updates to keep customers informed of progress on the test case.
Where can I find out more?
You can find more information through the following links:
Update to OFT test case - February 26 2009
Update to OFT test case - January 22 2009
Update to OFT test case - October 28 2008
Update to OFT test case - July 21 2008
Update to OFT test case - May 28 2008
Judgment on first stage of OFT test case - April 24 2008
Update to OFT test case - January 16 2008
The British Bankers' Association