Collective proceedings are commonly a claim brought by an individual class representative on behalf of a group of claimants who have suffered loss as a result of a breach of competition law. Collective proceedings are commonly referred to as class actions, class claims, group claims or a group action.

The group is known as a “class” and each claimant within the group is a “class member”.

The Claim has been filed at the Competition Appeal Tribunal, commonly referred to as simply the Tribunal. The Tribunal is a specialist judicial body with cross-disciplinary expertise in law, economics, business and accountancy whose function is to hear and decide cases involving competition or economic regulatory issues.

The Tribunal publishes its Rules and Guidance, along with information about what it does, on its website Competition Appeal Tribunal.

Should Mr Kaye KC be authorised to act as the class representative for the proposed claim, he will be responsible for conducting the collective proceedings on behalf of all class members, save those that opt-out of the claim.

Mr Kaye KC would be responsible for communicating with and issuing formal notices to the class members.

Mr Kaye KC will also be responsible for making decisions on the conduct of the claim and, in particular, will evaluate any offer of settlement that Google may make and decide whether to present it to the Tribunal for their approval.

To assist him in this role, Mr Kaye KC has established a consultative group of individuals with experience relevant to the claim. The members of the consultative group are:

• Claudio Calcagno – founder and director of GMT Economics – A trained economist who specialises in applying microeconomics to competition cases. He has advised clients on over one hundred matters, including market studies and investigations, mergers, abuse of dominance, vertical and horizontal agreements, competition appeals, regulatory investigations, State aid, and private litigation.
• Adam Collinson – Adam is a former competition law partner at a global multinational law firm with over 25 years of experience practicing in competition law.
• Professor Felipe Thomaz – Associate Professor of Marketing at Saïd Business School,  University of Oxford – Felipe is an expert in marketing strategy, structure and management, as well as a leading scholar on illicit and criminal markets.