Court Endorses "Bifurcated Process" In A Representative Action Under CPR 19.8

The summary judgment decision of the High Court in Barclays Bank UK PLC v Terry & Anor [2023] EWHC 2726 (Ch) is an example of bifurcated proceedings in a representative action brought under CPR 19.8. The Court decided that the "common issues" applicable to all defendants in the representative action were to be dealt with in the summary judgment decision, with individual issues to be decided at a later stage. The decision is one of the first cases to apply the bifurcated process recommended by the Supreme Court in Lloyd v Google [2021] UKSC 50.

Background

The Bank undertook a long-term project to identify cases where a mortgage from the Bank had been redeemed but not discharged. The Bank identified over 40,000 mortgages and approved the automatic discharge of the charges, with simultaneous applications to the Land Registry to remove the charges from the registered title. It subsequently transpired that some 5,141 of the mortgages were discharged by mistake, as the