Background

On 20 April 2026, the Law Commission, an independent organisation established to keep the law of England and Wales under review and recommend reform, announced a new project to consider the potential introduction of a consumer class actions regime in England and Wales. While independent, the Law Commission’s project is sponsored by the Department for Business and Trade (DBT), which is completing its review of the current competition collective (class) action regime that was introduced in the UK in 2015.  There has long been speculation that the government would use competition claims as a pilot before expanding the regime to consumer claims, including product liability and other claims, and this could be the first step in that process.

The Terms of Reference do not shed much further light on the project at this stage, aside from identifying that its purpose is to “set out the benefits and risks associated with the introduction of a collective class actions regime for consumer law claims…”.

However, it is a further signal that consumer protection and providing meaningful recourse for consumers has become a greater policy priority as it follows the recent implementation of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, which significantly overhauled UK consumer protection in digital markets, strengthening rights against fake reviews, drip pricing, subscription contract traps and other unfair practices.

This project will not consider substantive consumer rights but is instead squarely focussed on the design of a powerful new private enforcement mechanism to allow opt-out class actions to facilitate mass consumer claims in the UK.  This should be seen against a backdrop of growing pressure on the existing competition collective action regime where claimants have sought to characterise consumer law claims as competition claims in order to bring them before the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) as an opt-out collective action.  The CAT has pushed back on this, reminding parties in one recent case that “competition law is not a general law of consumer protection”. A dedicated consumer class actions regime would remove the need for such creative framing and, in doing so, would significantly expand the pool of claims that can be brought on an opt-out basis.

If the Law Commission’s decision is to recommend the introduction of a class actions regime for consumer claims, then it will also make recommendations as to the design of such a regime.