Farsighted court puts FOS limits back in focus - February 2014

Published 14 febrero 2014

In a decision that will be warmly welcomed across the financial services industry, the Court of Appeal has today clarified that a customer is barred from bringing a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), accepting an Ombudsman award made in their favour and then bringing court proceedings based on the same facts.

The question of whether a customer can do this or not potentially arises in relation to all FOS decisions, but is particularly acute in circumstances where a customer's losses exceed the statutory cap on awards of £150,000, where customers may look to accept the award and then use it as a fighting fund to "sue for the difference".

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