Court Rejects Second Appeal vs Dismissal of BT UK Landline Overcharging Case
The London Court of Appeal has refused permission for Justin Le Patourel to appeal against an earlier dismissal (here) of his £1.3bn class action claim against BT via the Collective Action on Land Lines (CALL) campaign. The organisation had accused the broadband and phone provider of overcharging several million of its landline-only phone customers.
The latest decision this week follows a similar ruling by the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in February 2025, which found that the claim had no real prospect of success (here). The CAT followed this up in May 2025 by publishing a cost order, which required the Class Representative (Justin Le Patourel) to pay 85% of the Defendants’ (BT) costs – totalling £16.5m.
Just to recap. The campaign itself was first raised at the start of 2021 via UK law firm Mishcon de Reya, which was acting on behalf of an ex-Ofcom telecoms consultant, Justin Le Patourel. In theory, a victory for the campaign might have forced BT to pay out up to £1.3bn in compensation to customers, but in December 2024 the CAT ruled that “BT’s prices were not unfair, and therefore there was no abuse of dominant position”.
Advertisement
The judge stressed that “just because a price is excessive does not mean that it was also unfair“. The CAT took into account, first, that while BT’s prices were found to be excessive, they were also “radically less than the excess relied upon by [Justin Le Patourel]. This meant that the weight of the excess going forward into the unfairness analysis reduced.”
The court also considered that BT had provided “distinctive value” to its Standalone Fixed Voice (SFV) customers, such that its price “bore a reasonable relation to value“. Value here was found, not just in terms of particular features or “Gives” provided to the customers, but also in BT’s brand value as a whole.
A BT Group spokesperson said:
“Today, the Court of Appeal refused permission for Justin Le Patourel to appeal the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s judgment. We take our responsibilities to all of our customers very seriously and are pleased to see the courts dismiss this matter, bringing it to a resolution.”
Justin Le Patourel said:
“I feel hugely disappointed for the BT landline customers who persistently paid excessive prices. I wonder if they agree with the courts that this was justified by BT’s brand or service, or if they agree instead with Ofcom’s provisional findings that it was not.
Despite this judgment, I continue to believe that the collective action regime has great potential to deter large companies from breaking competition law, and to secure compensation where they do. I plan to take lessons learnt from the BT case forward to other actions on behalf of consumers.”
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
« Fibrus Donate £57,805 to 32 Community Groups in Northern Ireland
The BT shareholders will be rubbing their hands, another 16.5 million saved, and in the kitty from the May court case. Hard too win against these big firms!
BT’s defence was that nobody was forced to take their product, but they instead willingly and voluntarily paid the price BT asked. Buyer’s remorse is on the buyer, not the vendor.
Hard to win against logic and facts!
Just have to look at todays news to prove my point. The Supreme Court rules for the Finance companies and Banks against the ordinary motorist, so I say again, hard to win against these Big Firms!
Any more Red Herrings you’d like to use, or do you want to stick to the original point? Namely;
1, there are a large number of non-BT landline providers,
2, people are, contracts aside, free to switch to whoever they prefer,
3, many chose not to do so,
4, they continued to pay the price asked of them by BT,
5, that people were happy to pay that price until an ambulance chaser came along looking for a replacement PPI-gravy train is not BT’s fault.
Agree with you Fibre Scriber, the BT customers were never going to win their court case. Although nothing to do with Telecoms, neither were the car finance customers as you said. Even when the ordinary working man/woman on the street do win, it’s a nightmare trying to get the money from the judgment. A good example here would be the postmasters against the Post Office. Judiciary part of the establishment!
This isn’t some David vs Goliath thing. Mishcon de Reya are “big law”, the sort of law firm BT might themselves have used if they were not engaged with the other side.
If BT has prevailed it’s not because of some conspiracy theory – they simply had the better argument.
Not much more to add to Ed’s already excellent points. People wanted competition in telecoms and personal responsibility comes with that. Telcos are already required to send notifications to their out-of-contract customers to point out that they might get a better deal by recontracting or changing provider.
Ed is BT Ivors Alt Account BTW
Complete rubbish from some on here. As Ed and others have said, anyone can move landline providers and are free to do so. If you choose to stay with BT and are paying over the odds, who is the bigger fool?
Far – Everbody has a right to their opinion, whether you believe it to be rubbish or not! FAR better keeping your thoughts to yourself, if you can’t let others have their opinions, right or wrong!
£16.5 million in legal costs?? Jesus wept, how on earth did it get to SO much?? Are they implying an army of expensive solicitors?
Swan-song of the courts system – Don’t deprive the elite of their unearned shareholder income sources otherwise the legal profession will be next to get it in the neck. Excess profits of utilities and near monopolies are their meat and drink. Nero-fascist economic policies like it too.
They don’t have any other skills apart from parasitising one-to-many commercial relationships and the economically vulnerable
When you appreciate that the majority of those who pay for land-lines only are most likely those on the lower end of the income scale and those that are not tech savvy.
So no need for HMG to intervene, through its agents like OFCOM, on the basis of social policy.
Which point of law are you disagreeing with the courts on? Could you try to be specific?
Had BT lost this case, it would mean that no company could fund new business ventures from their existing consumer revenue streams. (Legal precedent and case law)
To be brutally honest, it’s bad enough to get anything done in the UK with a Nimby planning system. Forcing businesses to borrow to fund anything outside their existing customer business would kill the UK economy dead.
As for those who moan about profits, remember that Pension Funds and other consumer investment products rely on profits to fund and grow them.