How Will The Mass Claims Landscape Change? 9 Observations From Mr. Bates v The Post Office

The on-screen retelling of the biggest miscarriage of justice in UK legal history has had dramatic effects off-screen, offering important lessons to anyone who may be thinking about class actions.

Robert Jones, Satinder Soni, and John Hays consider the impact this case is having in England and share observations that may be relevant in the wider global context.

For those unfamiliar with the case, ITV has dramatised certain events which took place between 1999 and 2019, beginning with the deployment of a faulty IT accounting system in branches of the Post Office and ending with events after a key judgement in the Technology & Construction Court, in the High Court, pursued under a Group Litigation Order. During the intervening time, hundreds of sub-postmasters responsible for running the branches were wrongly accused and convicted of theft or false accounting over alleged shortfalls in daily takings, due to problems with the accounting system. The cases against