CAT dismisses first post-Evans opt-out certification challenge

10/06/26

In December 2025, the Supreme Court in Evans (see news item here) upheld a CAT ruling refusing opt-out certification for a collective action, overturning the Court of Appeal ruling. 

Evans has prompted various defendants to ask the CAT to revisit opt-out certification in other cases, either decertifying the case entirely or requiring a hybrid of opt-out and opt-in, with larger claims being forced to opt-in.  In Rodger v Google, the CAT has rejected the first challenge to certification of this kind, in the context of a £1.04 billion claim.  In essence, the CAT held that the arguments being made by Google could and should have been raised at the original certification hearing, and that nothing had materially changed.  The CAT also held that Evans was not a material change, concluding that “we are not persuaded that there was anything specific in the judgment of the Court of Appeal which would have precluded Google from advancing the arguments on practicability of opt-in which it now makes. Rather, the comments of the Court of Appeal in Evans related to the assessment made by the Tribunal of the specific facts of that case, which are different from the facts of the present case.”

The judgment provides guidance for future applications of this kind, as well as on hybrid applications more generally and disclosure by class members.

The judgment is here.