Thrifty Loans

Although the High Court test case into bank charges has concluded after two weeks, the presiding judge, Justice Andrew Smith, has not yet delivered his ruling, stating that he has a lot of work to do before he can do this. The case was brought by the Office of Fair Trading against seven banks and one building society over the fairness of bank charges applied for exceeding overdraft limits, bounced cheques, and returned direct debits.

The judge’s decision to hold off on delivering the ruling has caused concern for some of the lawyers representing banks, who stated that this increases the risk of the information being leaked out between the time that the judge makes his decision and the time when he delivers his ruling officially. The judge has recognised these concerns and said that the draft ruling will only be made available to a select group of lawyers and the banks involved.

Bank representatives have asked the judge if he would deliver his ruling on a Friday, as if he rules in the OFT’s favour banks are likely to be flooded with calls and customers calling into branches. The delivery of the ruling on a Friday will give the banks the weekend to develop a strategy to deal with the influx of enquiries according o the representatives.

After the bank charge test case concluded last week the judge simply stated: “I have a great deal of work to do before I make my judgement.” With regards to the possibility of leaked information, one lawyer said: “The key point is to ensure there is no breach of confidentiality on the draft judgement.”