Court Orders Claimants Outside A GLO To Pay Their Share Of Adverse Costs | Wide Costs Powers Can Protect Participating Claimants

In Alfie Collier & Ors v Stellantis Auto SAS & Ors [2026] EWHC 2760 (KB), the High Court required claimants who had failed to serve by a GLO cut-off date to pay their share of an adverse costs order made against the group. The decision shows that the court can, in an appropriate case, impose GLO costs sharing on parties who are not claimants under the order at all. It does so through its general costs discretion and case management powers.

Background

The claims formed part of the Peugeot/Citroën/DS NOx emissions group litigation, which concerns diesel vehicles and the alleged use of prohibited defeat devices. A cohort represented by Bingham Long (the BL Claimants) validly issued a claim form but did not serve it before the cut-off deadline in the PCD GLO [1]. Senior Master Cook refused relief. The effect was that the BL Claimants could not form part of the Group Register [2].

At the PDD Liability trial consequentials hearing, Cockerill LJ ordered the PCD Claimants to pay £22,936,174.75 to the PCD Defendants by way of interim payment on account of the costs order made against them. Pogust Goodhead then provided a schedule allocating expected payments across the PCD Claimant solicitors. Bingham Long was shown as expected to contribute £971,970.32, because the BL Claimants had constituted about 5% of the PCD Claimants [74].

Costs Issues Before the Court

The hearing dealt with a strike-out application and the BL Claimants’ application for directions. Mr Shires, for the remaining PCD Claimants, also raised the existing adverse costs order. The question was whether the court could still require the BL Claimants to bear their share of that order once they were found to sit outside the PCD GLO. The alternative was that their share would effectively fall on the rest of the cohort [75].

The Parties’ Positions

Mr Shires sought an order that any stay or other order should treat the BL Claimants as if they were subject to the PCD GLO, at least until Senior Master Cook’s decision. He relied on the reality that the BL Claimants and the remaining cohort had acted as though the BL Claimants were part of the GLO. His ultimate submission was that the BL Claimants should not be off the hook for the adverse costs [75].

Mr Chowdhury, for the BL Claimants, said that they had actively wanted to be part of the PCD GLO, with all the consequences that entailed. If the court found them outside it, however, they were out. They were then not Claimants, and the costs provisions of the GLO would not apply to them [78].

The Court’s Decision

Under paragraph 4 of the PCD GLO, the Claimants are those whose details are on the Group Register [46]. Constable J held that failure to serve by the cut-off date was fatal to registration. The BL Claimants were therefore not Claimants and could not obtain the benefits conferred on Claimants [56]. Their claims nonetheless subsisted outside the GLO [57]. If compliant particulars were served within 21 days, the claims would be stayed generally, with liberty to apply [73].

The judge built on Taylor v Nugent Care Society. There, Lord Woolf CJ held that a claim pursued outside a GLO remains subject to the court’s case management powers. He also said that the court has very wide powers in regard to costs. Those powers could protect a defendant from paying more than it would have paid had the claimant been a party to the group action [25].

Constable J identified a gap in that reasoning. Lord Woolf was principally concerned with protecting the defendant. He did not expressly consider how case management and costs powers might address unfairness between participating claimants and a claimant outside the GLO. Such a claimant might avoid the costs of generic issues while seeking to take advantage of a favourable outcome [29].

The judge accepted Mr Chowdhury’s submission that, as a matter of construction, the express costs-sharing provisions of the PCD GLO did not apply to the BL Claimants. He then reframed the issue:

“The question is instead whether, in determining the future management of claims which have proceeded in parallel with the PCD GLO and have sought the benefit of its determination of generic issues, the Court may make an appropriate costs order as part of its general case management power over the BL Claimants’ claims, and pursuant to its wide discretion as to costs.” [79]

Mr Chowdhury did not submit that a contribution order would be outwith the court’s discretion as to costs. Constable J noted that Lord Woolf’s observation in Taylor was made to protect a defendant. He held that there was no basis to consider that those wide powers could not equally protect other claimants in a GLO from bearing all the consequences of pursuing it, where claimants outside the GLO seek the benefit of its outcome [79].

The judge found that approach reflected in the remarks of Hildyard J in the RBS Rights Issue Litigation. Hildyard J said that the court should minimise any comparative advantage of litigating outside the GLO framework. Privileged observer status, without adverse costs risk or contribution to common costs, was neither fair nor consistent with GLO objectives. Costs-sharing was a fundamental feature and advantage of a GLO, subject to special circumstances or special arrangements agreed between group members [79].

The judge found that this was not a case of claimants deliberately standing aside to take favourable findings without the corresponding burdens. The BL Claimants had contributed hundreds of thousands of pounds to common trial costs, paid adverse costs on a failed interlocutory application and assisted the Lead Solicitors [76]. Constable J held that “it would be artificial to treat the BL Claimants as complete strangers to the costs consequences of the proceedings” [80].

The stayed BL Claimants might in due course seek to lift the stay to obtain the benefit of the PCD Claimants’ work [81]. Letting them keep that benefit while the remaining claimants alone shouldered the adverse costs would be neither fair nor consistent with the overriding objective. The court could have regard to the legitimate interests of claimants who had participated in and funded the group litigation, as well as to the interests of the defendants [82].

In the circumstances of this case, the BL Claimants were ordered to pay their share of the adverse costs order imposed on the remaining PCD Claimants. That was so even though they had, in law, stood outside the PCD GLO. The parties were to seek to agree the wording of the order [83].

Practical Implications

This is a first instance decision. It gives lead solicitors for participating claimants a route to protect the cohort where another group of claimants falls outside a GLO but stands to benefit from generic determinations. Rather than relying on the order’s own terms, they can ask the court to impose GLO costs sharing through its general case management power and costs discretion. The natural point to do so is when the court decides how the excluded claims will be managed [79], [82].

Solicitors for claimants excluded from a register should advise that exclusion may not end exposure to adverse costs. Showing that a client is not a Claimant under the order will not necessarily avoid GLO costs sharing imposed by the court. That is particularly so where the client contributed to common costs and common work and expected to share in the outcome [77], [80].

Funding arrangements should be reviewed on both sides. The BL Claimants themselves pointed out that ATE insurance for the other claimants had been placed partly by reference to claimant numbers. Losing a cohort’s contribution could therefore increase the share that others bore [68]. A party seeking a contribution order should bring a draft order to the hearing. None was provided here, which left the wording to be agreed later [83].

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