The Court of Appeal’s decision in Black Horse Ltd v Angel & Ors [2026] EWCA Civ 831 will become a significant reference point in the developing procedural architecture of mass consumer litigation. While this ruling arises from the motor finance commission litigation, it will also affect other categories of claim. The judgment clarifies when large numbers of claimants may proceed by way of ‘omnibus’ claim forms under CPR 7.3, rather than issuing thousands of separate claims or seeking a group litigation order.
The claims (brought by Angel and over 5,000 other borrowers) concern motor finance agreements in which the claimants allege that lenders paid commissions to motor dealers or brokers which were not properly disclosed. The claimants say that those arrangements gave rise to an unfair relationship under sections 140A-C of the Consumer Credit Act 1974. At first instance, Ritchie J had overturned a county court decision requiring the claims to be severed and pursued separately and allowed the claims to proceed on an omnibus basis. The appeal court has now dismissed the lenders’ appeals, allowing thousands of claims to proceed together by way of eight omnibus claim forms, grouped by defendant.
CPR 7.3 provides that a claimant may use a single claim form to start all claims which can conveniently be disposed of in the same proceedings. The lenders argued that the claims were too individualised and fact-sensitive. Unfair relationship claims under section 140A require the court to consider all the relevant circumstances. The lenders submitted that the claims would turn on the facts of each finance agreement, each customer’s circumstances, the nature of any disclosure, the broker/dealer arrangements, and the extent to which any commission affected the price paid (and any other relevant circumstances).
However, the appeal court rejected the idea that this fact-sensitive character was fatal. Lord Justice Coulson (pictured), giving the lead judgment, held that the claims raised common issues of law and fact. They involved the same statutory provisions, the same broad allegation of undisclosed or inadequately disclosed commission arrangements, and the same general question of whether those arrangements made the relationship unfair. Differences between individual claims did not defeat commonality. Some of those differences were themselves likely to recur across cohorts of claims, making them suitable for structured case management.
Importantly, the appeal court does not say that all claims would rise or fall together, or endorse a class action in the US sense. Rather, it promotes what it imagines to be a pragmatic model of case management, with lead cases selected after disclosure and some more particularised pleading. Those lead cases could then test a range of factual scenarios and legal issues. Their outcomes might not formally bind every remaining claim, but they would be highly persuasive, commercially significant and could promote settlement or narrow the issues in the remaining cases. CPR 7.3 provides that claims that can be ‘conveniently disposed of’ in the same proceedings are appropriate for the omnibus treatment. The court explicitly stated that this expression must encompass the court’s case management powers.
The judgment also focuses on proportionality and access to justice. The individual claims are relatively low-value. If each claimant had to issue and pursue a separate claim, many claims would become uneconomic for claimants who lack financial resources, particularly as against the resources of the defendants. Allowing omnibus claim forms creates obvious economies of scale: lower issue-fee exposure, more efficient disclosure, fewer duplicated hearings, reduced risk of inconsistent decisions and a possible route to testing common issues.
This will obviously be welcomed by claimant firms, claims management companies and litigation funders. For them, the decision makes the economics of low-value, high-volume consumer litigation materially more attractive. The judgment confirms that group litigation orders and representative actions are not the only route for managing mass claims, and that CPR 7.3 may be used flexibly where convenient disposal can be achieved.
As for defendants, among other things, they will have to deal with an increase in generic (often poorly pleaded) aggregated claims and seek to assess how to deal with the scope and sequencing of disclosure, the identification of cohorts, the selection of lead cases, and whether findings in those lead cases should bind or merely guide later claims.
Angel will embolden claimant lawyers and funders in other sectors. Motor finance is the immediate context, but s140A CCA claims cover a number of other loans (including payment protection insurance). The emphasis on case management as a justification for not allowing the appeal means that claims outside the CCA framework will also be considered for the CPR 7.3 treatment, including data incidents, greenwashing, technical outages and sales failures.
Angel is a procedural landmark for a more pragmatic form of collective litigation within the existing CPR framework. For claimants, it improves access to the courts. For funders and CMCs, it improves the business model. For defendants, it increases aggregate litigation risk. The judgment is therefore best understood not as a motor finance footnote, but as part of a broader judicial accommodation of high-volume, low-value consumer litigation within the existing CPR framework.
Robert Allen is a partner at Simmons & Simmons, London
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