Group claim by students stayed for alternative dispute resolution

Current and former students of University College London (UCL) claim UCL was in breach of contract when in-person tuition was disrupted due to strike action or public health restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic. They claim they did not receive the services they paid for and are seeking partial repayment of their tuition fees for the academic teaching years of 2017-2018, 2019-2020, 2020-2021 and 2021-2022.

The individuals are seeking to pursue their claims as a group and have applied to the High Court for a group litigation order (GLO). UCL has opposed the application, arguing that there is no basis for it. Pinsent Masons is acting for UCL in the case.

On Monday, the High Court granted UCL’s application for the court proceedings to be stayed for a period of eight months. That decision was taken to allow the individuals to first raise their claims via an ADR process before proceeding through the courts – whether that is via the statutory-backed ADR process which provides for complaints to be handled by the relevant academic institution in the first instance with scope for complaints to be referred on to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIA), or another ADR process.

The judge, Senior Master Fontaine, said that while granting a stay for ADR would “delay the progress of the litigation, … it may also end all or a substantial number of the claims with the substantial saving of time and costs”.

“I encourage the parties in the strongest possible terms to engage in an appropriate form of ADR, which will involve serious attempts by both parties to find a compromise in the manner in which that can be achieved,” the judge said.

In her ruling, Senior Master Fontaine also commented that the application made for a GLO could not be taken forward in its current form. In particular, the judge said the claims need to be properly formulated before they get to court and that the claimants should be prepared to make proposals as to how different cohorts of students in similar factual circumstances could be grouped together.

The judge also raised concerns about how individuals had been recruited to the group claim, in particular the information provided to students about what is involved in bringing the claims and the need for claims to be properly particularised in terms of what amount of compensation is sought from UCL.

“Where a GLO is sought at the stage where the parties have exchanged generic statements of case, the court would expect the parties to have identified what claimant specific information is required…to allow the parties to agree or the court to decide which claimants should provide individual particulars of claim,” the judge said.

“That information will be required in any event if the litigation progresses …. [The barrister for UCL] identified in submissions the information that UCL has sought from the claimants … and this will be crucial to ADR being successful, whether via the OIA scheme or otherwise. If it is unsuccessful and the matter comes back to the court, the court will expect the reasons for that to be explained, and costs sanctions may be imposed if the explanations are unsatisfactory. Even if the ADR process is unsuccessful the litigation will not progress unless such material is provided,” she said.