Car Delivery Charges claim settlements total £92.75m following settlements with remaining Defendants, MOL & NYK
London, 10 December 2025. Mark McLaren, the class representative in the Car Delivery Charges claim has today announced a further settlement with the remaining 2 defendants, MOL and NYK, in the sum of £54m. This follows earlier settlements with the other 3 cartelists “K” Line (£12.75 million) and WWL/EUKOR (£24.5 million), reached in January 2025, and CSAV (£1.5 million), reached in December 2023, who were also defendants to the action.
The action against some of the world’s leading shipping companies was brought by consumer champion and class representative Mark McLaren and was originally valued at £150 million. The roll-on roll-off shipping cartel (“RoRo Cartel”) affected the shipments of 17 million new cars and vans to the UK from a variety of major European brands, including Ford, Vauxhall, Volkswagen, Peugeot, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Toyota, Citroen, and Renault that were sold or leased by UK consumers and businesses between October 2006 and September 2015. This settlement follows a nine week trial against MOL and NYK which started in January 2025. This will be the first distribution in the opt-out regime where businesses, as well as consumers, will be entitled to recover losses suffered as a result of anti-competitive behaviour. The settlement hearing is listed to be heard at the Competition Appeal Tribunal on 15 January 2026.
Mark McLaren, Class Representative, said, “Since I launched this case five years ago, I was confident that this claim would result in significant damages being awarded to UK consumers and businesses. I am pleased that this historic settlement agreement not only resolves wrongful anti-competitive, cartelist actions, but also allows for class members to finally be compensated for their financial losses. This outcome also shows how the UK’s opt-out regime is working exactly as intended, giving both consumers and businesses an effective and fair route to recover monies owed as a result of cartel behaviour that they could never pursue on their own.”
Woodsford, a global leader in collective redress, has provided significant, multi-million pound funding for legal fees and other costs since 2020. Woodsford remains the most successful litigation funder, active in the CAT collective action regime, with this settlement following the CAT’s approval of a £25 million settlement in May 2024 with Stagecoach South Western Trains Limited (the ‘Settling Defendant’ in the SW Proceedings). Through the approval of the distribution plan in those proceedings, the CAT agreed with Woodsford’s suggestion that £3.78m be paid to the Access to Justice Foundation.
Charlie Morris, Woodsford’s Chief Investment Officer, who led the matter with Senior Investment Officer, Hugh Tait, commented, “Woodsford is proud to have funded Mark McLaren in holding these cartelists to account for their anticompetitive misconduct. At a time when the Department for Business and Trade is carrying out a review of the collective action regime, this action is the paradigm example of why the regime is so important. It has allowed thousands of UK consumers and businesses to access justice and receive meaningful compensation when they might not otherwise have been able to do so. Particularly given that a significant proportion of these settlements is guaranteed to be paid to consumers, businesses and/or charity, this action can and should be recognised as a real success story.”
McLaren, formerly at the Consumers’ Association ‘Which?’, instructed leading competition law and group litigation firm Scott+Scott UK LLP alongside a highly skilled barrister team led by Sarah Ford KC and Sarah O’Keefe of Brick Court Chambers and Nicholas Gibson of Matrix Chambers. Cian Mansfield, Managing Partner of Scott+Scott UK LLP, said, “This settlement marks a significant milestone for UK consumers and businesses that paid higher shipping fees for new purchased or leased vehicles as a result of the cartel as it concludes the litigation and guarantees them significant compensation. This case is groundbreaking as it is the first time damages will be distributed to UK businesses under the opt-out regime. We are delighted that five years of hard work on behalf of the class has paid off.”
Consumers and businesses who wish to receive updates about the settlement and distribution and to find out if they are entitled to receive damages should register their interest on the case website.
