The Court of Appeal unanimously rejects Sony PlayStation’s challenge to the enforceability of Woodsford’s funding agreement in major competition class action.
The Court of Appeal has ruled against Sony, Visa, Mastercard and Apple in their consolidated attempts to challenge the validity of funding agreements in four separate competition class actions, including the class action against Sony funded by Woodsford.
Having failed in their challenges to the agreements in the UK Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT), the corporate behemoths again sought to argue on appeal that funding agreements that calculate the funder’s fee by reference to a multiple of funder’s outlays are damages-based agreements (DBAs), which are impermissible in opt-out proceedings in the CAT. The Court of Appeal unanimously rejected the appeals.
How did we get here?
Woodsford has been funding Alex Neill, the class representative in the Sony PlayStation class action, in her efforts to seek redress on behalf of 8.9 million PlayStation customers since 2022.
The landmark Supreme Court PACCAR decision in July 2023, which deemed percentage-based funding agreements to be DBAs and therefore unenforceable in UK CAT opt-out proceedings, created significant uncertainty for UK claimants seeking collective redress. Woodsford and the class representative addressed this uncertainty by amending the funding agreement, and in November 2023, the Sony PlayStation claim was the first claim with post-PACCAR compliant terms to be fully certified.
Sony was granted leave to appeal the funding aspects of this decision in January 2024, but the appeal was stayed pending the introduction of a bill to reverse the impact of the PACCAR decision. Ultimately that legislation did not materialise (as a general election was called and the Bill didn’t survive) so the stay was lifted and the conjoined appeals were heard in June 2025.
The judgment.
Although Sony accepted that calculating Woodsford’s return by reference to a multiple of its outlay did not make the funding agreement a DBA, it sought to argue that the existence of an implied or explicit cap by reference to the proceeds recovered did make it fall within the remit of the Courts and Legal Service Act and the DBA regulations. Sir Julian Flaux, Chancellor the High Court, delivering the court’s unanimous decision, concluded that adoption of Sony’s argument would “produce the absurd result that funding under LFAs in the CAT would become practically impossible”. He further acknowledged the “equally absurd result” where Sony was prepared to accept an uncapped multiple-of-costs funding agreement as being enforceable yet sought to deem unenforceable a capped funding agreement “which by definition protects the class and the class representative from having to pay excessive amounts to the funder”.
What’s next?
With Woodsford’s funding agreement being deemed valid, Alex Neill’s action to seek redress on behalf of millions of UK consumers affected by Sony’s alleged anti-competitive conduct will continue. The matter is listed for trial in March 2026.
To read the full judgment, click here.
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