Mastercard compensation delayed as legal battle over £200m payout continues

If you were hoping for a payout from the £200m Mastercard compensation pot, you might be waiting longer than expected.

A new legal challenge has delayed the process, and could even reduce the amount of money claimants receive.

What’s caused the delay?

Mastercard has agreed to pay out £200m to settle a long-running legal case that accused the company of overcharging retailers - costs that were passed onto millions of UK shoppers.

But just as people were getting ready to submit their claims, a fresh legal row has thrown a spanner in the works.

The company Innsworth, that helped fund the original legal case, has launched a new legal challenge. Innsworth is what's known as a litigation funder - a business that covers the cost of big court cases in return for a slice of any compensation won.

Now, Innsworth is arguing it hasn’t been offered a fair share of the £200m settlement and claims the tribunal that approved the deal made "a series of errors in its judgment" about how the money should be split. It’s asked for a judicial review - a legal process that looks at whether a decision was made properly - in an attempt to secure a bigger cut.

What does this mean for you?

This new legal wrangling means a delay in the launch of the online claims portal - and with it, a delay in people receiving their money.

And if Innsworth wins its case and is awarded a larger chunk of the £200m pot, there could be less money left over for everyone else, especially if more people come forward to make a claim.

What was the case about?

If you missed the original story, the case centred around claims that Mastercard charged excessive fees to retailers, which were then passed onto shoppers in the form of higher prices. The legal team behind the claim argued that anyone aged 16 or over who lived in the UK between 1992 and 2008 could be owed money, even if they never had a Mastercard. Individual payouts were expected to be around £45 to £70. But that figure could end up being lower if Innsworth's claim is successful.

What should you do now?

For now, all you can do is wait. The team behind the claim has said they’ll update potential claimants as soon as the claims process is ready to launch, but this could now take months.

We’ll keep you posted with the latest developments.