CAT Which? Qualcomm Settlement No Compensation — Lawyer Monthly

The Competition Appeal Tribunal has approved the collective settlement between Which? Consumers’ Association and Qualcomm Incorporated in a judgment delivered on 10 June 2026, bringing to a close proceedings that began in February 2021 and ran to a full trial between October and November 2025 — in a resolution that involves no payment of compensation to class members and raises direct questions about the effectiveness of the UK’s opt-out collective proceedings regime for technology competition claims.

The proceedings were brought by Which? under section 47B of the Competition Act 1998, alleging that Qualcomm had abused a dominant position in breach of the Chapter II prohibition under section 18 of the Competition Act 1998 and, until 31 December 2020, Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.

The Collective Proceedings Order was made by the Tribunal on 4 July 2022, with the case chaired by Mrs Justice Bacon alongside expert panel members Derek Ridyard and Justin Turner KC. Following the full trial the parties filed a joint collective settlement approval application on 13 February 2026. The settlement hearing took place before the Settlement Tribunal on 18 May 2026 and judgment approving the settlement was delivered on 10 June 2026.

The settlement’s most striking feature is the absence of any financial compensation for class members. The proceedings ran for more than five years, included six case management conferences, a pre-trial review and a full four-week trial involving expert evidence from Professor Carl Shapiro before reaching a resolution that delivers nothing directly to the UK consumers the proceedings were designed to protect.

The CAT’s approval of a nil-compensation settlement signals that the tribunal was satisfied the resolution was just and reasonable in all the circumstances — but the outcome will inevitably prompt scrutiny of whether the collective proceedings framework is delivering its intended access-to-justice benefits in technology competition cases.

The timing is significant. The Which? Qualcomm settlement approval follows the High Court’s dismissal on 10 June 2026 of Innsworth Capital’s challenge in the Walter Merricks Mastercard proceedings — a separate ruling that also raised fundamental questions about funder returns and class member benefits in UK collective actions.

Together the two decisions on the same day represent a significant moment of reflection for competition law practices, litigation funders and the CAT regime’s proponents. Jeremy Marshall of Winward Litigation Finance had already warned that the Mastercard outcome would dampen funder appetite for CAT claims.

For competition law practices the Which? Qualcomm outcome reinforces the risk that technology dominance claims — which involve complex economic analysis of multi-sided markets and chipset licensing practices — may be extremely difficult to prosecute successfully through collective proceedings even after full trial. Law firms advising claimant class representatives and litigation funders on CAT proceedings should be stress-testing their economic frameworks and class definitions against the lessons of both the Qualcomm settlement and the Mastercard distribution outcome before committing to new CAT filings through 2026.