CityAM: Chris Kay - December 2009
The Office of Fair Trading spent just over £950,000 on legal fees in its failed pursuit to investigate bank overdraft fees, City A.M. has learned.
The external legal costs, released after a freedom of information request, crossed over the three related courts actions from the first hearing in April 2008, ending in a successful appeal in favour of high street banks in the Supreme Court last month.
Experts claim the cases were over factual aspects of law, not involving costly or lengthy appearances that court command such fees.
"It does sound like an awful lot of money for a relatively confined issue of law," say Mathew Rea, from Dawsons Solicitors.
The OFT has to answer why so much money was spent on a case the courts saw as "fatally flawed", said Mark Wallace, from the Tax Payer's Alliance.
"Irrespective of the rights or wrongs of the case, the size of this bill is a cause for concern, Quangos like the OFT are often viewed as soft touches by all sorts of private contractors, the lawyers are no different," he said.
Comment by Mathew Rea