The 700 or so personal injury law firms that have been caught up in the fallout of The Accident Group test cases last week learnt the hard lesson that, in the claims management world, there is no such thing as an easy bet.

Following the Court of Appeal decision - which ruled that the 310 per case paid to TAG by the firms amounted to an illegal referral fee and should be returned to clients - it is possible that the cost of that punt could hit some 43 million.

So the madness of the claims management story continues - and this case sounds a clear warning for those solicitors' firms still working with claims managers.

The law firms involved understandably will argue that at the time it was hardly clear that the fees were in breach of the Law Society's introduction and referral code and that they would therefore be unrecoverable.

The Society's Council has since amended the code, allowing referral payments in some circumstances.

But it remains unclear whether or not the TAG payments would have fallen foul of the new rules.

There are still issues that need addressing, and regulation of a wholly unregulated claims management industry can't come quickly enough.

Sir David Clementi's review is looking at this issue, but perhaps the damage has been done and one wonders whether there will be much of an industry left to regulate by the time ministers study his report next year.