Advantages of a Group Claim for Defendants and Claimants

There are many advantages of a Group Claim proceeding for both defendants and claimants.

For defendants, it means that one procedure will deal with many claims about a single issue. This avoids the defendant having to fight separate court proceedings for each party, taking up time and resources.

It also encourages settlement because a group wide settlement gives a defendant final closure for all the included claims in one go (see Do Group Claims make a settlement more difficult?). This is because Group Claim outcomes can bind companies or individuals who are not involved in the case and have not taken any steps to join the case, eliminating the risk of future claims for the same issue, (see Can I be part of a Group Claim or be bound by its outcome if I haven't done nothing to participate? and What does it mean to opt out?).

For everyone, having a single procedure instead of many court proceedings is designed to reduce legal and related costs, and generate fairer outcomes.

For the claimants, the benefits of a Group Claim include strength in numbers, sharing the legal costs and an initial focus on one person’s claim instead of having to prepare every case with a similar profile individually. It also means that if any common issues arise that need to be addressed, they can be dealt with before individual variations are argued in court.