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Latest Campaign News This section gives chronological details of RPSAG's campaign, including key decisions made by the Committee, who meet regularly at the Lincoln's Inn offices of its solicitors and legal advisers, Edwin Coe, at 2 Stone Buildings, Lincoln's Inn, London.
21st October - Decision on Appeal The Committee met on 20th October and decided not to Appeal against the judgement in its Claim against the Government.
Click here for our Press Release.
We will now be starting the process of disbanding RPSAG. We will be writing out to all our members during November.
19th October Mr Byers is to face a Commons investigation into claims that he lied to MP's. MP's have to-day referred the matter to the Standards and Privileges Committee.
17th October RPSAG lost its Claim. Click here for our Press Release.
Click here for the full judgement (new 400Kb version now available). We urge you to read this all the way through to fully understand RPSAG's reaction to it.
Costs were awarded against us, but RPSAG had the necessary funds put aside to cover this. Please do not send us any more money at this time - any cheques received will not be cashed until the Committee has decided on its next steps.
The Committee has 14 days to consider whether or not to Appeal. We will study the judgement in more depth, take advice from our legal advisers and consider the financial implications before deciding whether or not to Appeal.
We will give more information a soon as we can. The Trial The Trail on liability started on 27th June and finished on 21st July 2005. Mr Justice Lindsay reserved judgement, and it is expected that the Court will reconvene in October for judgement to be delivered. Click here for our Press Release of 22nd July 2005.
We will give details of the judgement, and RPSAG's reaction to it, as soon as we can.
Reports of the Trial Click here for press coverage of the Trial. Click here for a brilliant item by Simon Jenkins in The Sunday Times of 17th July 2005.
Progress of the Trial: 27th June - 21st July 2005
Details of the Trial process The Hearing is being heard before Mr Justice Lindsay in Court 62 at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London. Proceedings run from 1030 am - 1 pm, then 2 pm - 4.30 pm.
The Hearing started on Monday 27th June 2005 and is estimated to last until Thursday 21st July. It is open to the public and we hope that our members will come along to support us and to observe what should be a very interesting Trial. You should arrive in good time to be sure of a seat. You can enter and leave the Court room at any time, and casual dress is OK. Make sure you turn your mobile phone off.
Friday 24th June - latest information on the Hearing Court proceedings will definitely start at 1030 am on Monday 27th June.
The Hearing will be held before Mr Justice Lindsay in Court 62 at the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London.
The Hearing is estimated to last 3 - 4 weeks. It will be open to the public and we hope that lots of our members will come along to support us and to observe what should be a very interesting Trial.
2nd June 2005 RPSAG announced on 1st June that it is going ahead with its Claim against HM Government. Click here for the Press Release.
We have:
This means that we can go ahead with our Claim in the certain knowledge that we have sufficient funds to see us through, and that we will not have to seek any further contributions from our members.
The Hearing is due to commence in the Chancery Division of the High Court in the Royal Courts of Justice, Strand, London, on Monday 27th June 2005. We will not know the Court number and start time until later, maybe not until Friday 24th June when the Court Hearings for Monday 27th June will be listed here. The Hearing will be open to the public.
22nd May 2005 We hope to make an announcement in the next few days regarding the progress of our Claim which is due to be heard in the High Court starting on Monday 27th June 2005.
Thank you to all those who have already sent in donations. If you have not yet made your donation, please do so NOW, preferably by credit transfer or on-line credit card payment.
Or you may send a cheque (with your membership number written on the back) to: Bureau Solutions, I Buckingham Court, Dairy Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6XW.
If you contributed by posting a cheque or credit card details to Bureau Solutions, please note that for logistical reasons it may be a week or two until some payments are processed.
£900,000 Appeal [ie the "April 2005 Appeal"] - update 15th May 2005 Thank you to all those who have already sent in donations. If you have not yet made your donation, please do so NOW, preferably by credit transfer or on-line credit card payment.
It is essential that we receive all donations this week.
Members who have contributed to the Legal Action should have had their emails or letters by now, except for a very few email recipients whose emails bounced back because of ISP problems. We are now hardmailing to these recipients.
We are not yet able to give any information about the response to the "£900,000 Appeal", but we hope to make an announcement soon.
If you contributed by posting a cheque or credit card details to Bureau Solutions, please note that for logistical reasons it may be a week or two until some payments are processed.
Witness Statement The claimants' Witness Statement for the "cost-capping" Hearing in the High Court on 19th/20th April 2005 is now a public document. It has been referred to in many press reports.
Many of our members have asked to see this Witness Statement, so for their convenience we have decided to publish it here.
There are two parts: Click here for the Witness Statement excluding Exhibits (19 pages, .8MB) Click here for the Exhibits (195 pages, 8.7MB)
Urgent - Raising the £900,000 [ie the "April 2005 Appeal"] (updated 1st May 2005)
[Please note that payment by credit card or credit transfer is no longer available]
RPSAG needs to raise a further £900,000 quickly if we are to continue with our Claim against the Government. The Committee has written out to all 47,940 members who are part of the Legal Action seeking a minimum donation of £30 to be made by return.
Click here for a copy of this letter. We have emailed to those we have email addresses for, and posted to the rest. We will also post to email "bouncebacks".
If you are already a member of RPSAG please contribute NOW. The methods of payment are as follows, in order of preference to minimise administrative costs:
1. By internet banking, BACS or credit transfer 2. By credit card 3. By cheque - cheque processing is slower and more expensive for us, but if this is your preferred method of payment please write your RPSAG membership number (ie "RPSAG/nnnnnn") on the back of your cheque, make it payable to "RPSAG", and send it to: RPSAG, c/o Bureau Solutions, 1 Buckingham Court, Dairy Road, Chelmsford, Essex CM2 6XW.
If you are not a member of RPSAG and do not wish to join, but nevertheless wish to make a donation to our £900,000 Fund, please click here.
Please contribute as much as you are able to.
RPSAG would be interested to hear from any potential provider of major funding. Any such potential contributors are invited to contact us, in confidence if necessary, through our solicitors Edwin Coe as soon as possible.
Friday 22nd April - 1200 noon The Committee has decided to go ahead with further fundraising. A letter will go out to all 47,940 claimants in a day or two.
More details tomorrow .....
Thursday 21st April - 8 pm The Committee met this afternoon with their legal advisers and considered the outcome of the Court Hearing on cost capping, and the options now left for RPSAG and its campaign.
A decision was reached and this will be announced at a Press Conference to be held at the offices of Edwin Coe in Lincoln's Inn on Friday 22nd April at 1030 am.
Thursday 21st April - 1000 am RPSAG was in the High Court on Tuesday 19th April and Wednesday 20th April for a Hearing before Mr Justice Lindsay on cost issues. RPSAG asked the Court to impose a "cost cap" of £1.35 million on the costs that the defendants can claim from RPSAG should RPSAG be unsuccessful at the Trial starting on 27th June. RPSAG would pay this sum into Court before the start of the Trial.
£1.35 million is the maximum amount that RPSAG has available to cover adverse costs, allowing for its own expenses.
The defendants agree to the principle of a "cost cap", but sought £2.25 million.
At 3pm on Wednesday 20th April Mr Justice Lindsay gave his judgement rejecting RPSAG's claim.
This is a major setback to RPSAG's campaign. The Committee will be meeting on Thursday 21st April to consider its next steps, but if we are to continue we will need to raise an extra £900,000 very quickly - possibly from a small number of large contributors.
Any such potential contributors are invited to contact us, in confidence if necessary, through our solicitors Edwin Coe as soon as possible.
Friday 11th March The Committee met to-day with its legal team to review progress and to discuss various issues associated with the Claim and the forthcoming hearing in the High Court.
Friday 28th January 2005 The Committee met yesterday. It was noted that documents had been received from the defendants under the disclosure process, and that witness statements had been exchanged.
The legal team is continuing to prepare for the hearing in June.
July 2004 - January 2005 The Committee and its legal advisers continue to meet regularly to review progress with the Claim.
Friday 2nd July The Committee met yesterday and considered the outcome of the Case Management Conference (CMC) held in the Chancery Division of the High Court before Mr Justice Lindsay on 28th and 29th June.
It was agreed at the CMC that the trial of our Claim be split between a trial on liability and a trial on quantum.
We now know the timetable for our Claim, which is as follows:
By 3rd September: each party to give standard disclosure by list.
By 3rd December: signed witness statements to be exchanged between the parties.
27th June 2005: the trial on liability will commence. It is estimated that the trial will last four weeks.
Click here for more details of the Court structure. Click here for general information about the civil procedure rules for Claims in the Chancery Division of the High Court, which explain how Claims such as ours are managed through the Court.
Tuesday 29th June Our hearing was concluded.
Monday 28th June - 6 pm Our hearing started to-day, but did not finish. It will continue at 1030 tomorrow in Court 62 before Mr. Justice Lindsay, and is expected to finish by 1 pm.
Friday 25th June - 2 pm The Daily Court List shows that our case will be heard on Monday 28th June, in Court 62, starting at half past ten, before Mr Justice Lindsay.
Thursday 24th June - 4pm We have just been informed that the Case Management Conference will not now take place tomorrow, as originally planned. The Court will list our case in due course, we hope within the next few days. The Daily Court List, which is published each afternoon for the following day's hearings, will be the first source of information on when our case is to be heard.
Friday 18th June The Committee met on Thursday 17th June and finalised its preparations for the Case Management Conference (CMC), which will be held in open Court in the Chancery Division of the High Court at the Royal Courts of Justice, The Strand, London. The date is expected to be Friday 25th June, but this will not be confirmed until the day before.
The CMC will be heard before a Judge who will give directions on the conduct of the case which will determine how our Claim will be progressed through the legal system. RPSAG will be represented by its legal team, and the defendants - the Secretary of State for Transport and the Department for Transport - will be represented by theirs.
RPSAG has not published the defendants' response to its Claim, so the CMC will be the first occasion at which some issues in the response come into the public domain.
Click here for more details of the Court structure, and click here for the Daily Court List that will, in due course, show in which Court and before which Judge the CMC will be heard.
Click here for general information about the civil procedure rules for Claims in the Chancery Division of the High Court. Chapter 3 gives more details of the Case Management process.
The Committee plans to meet again on Thursday 1st July - however, this meeting may be postponed if the CMC has not been held by then. After this meeting we will give more details of how we expect the Claim to move forward.
Saturday 5th June The Committee will be meeting on Thursday 17th June to discuss progress and to agree any necessary actions in preparation for the case management conference, which has been fixed for Friday 25th June. At the case management conference, which will be led by the Judge appointed to hear our Claim, directions will be given which will determine how our Claim is progressed through the legal system.
Our Claim has been issued in the Chancery Division of the High Court, but we do not yet know the name of Judge allocated to our Claim.
Wednesday 28th April It is expected that a date for a case management conference will be agreed shortly. This is part of the process by which the Claimants, defendants and the Court decide how the case will be progressed.
Monday 15th March The Committee met on Thursday 11th March to discuss the Government's response to the Claim RPSAG issued in the High Court on 2nd December 2003 for misfeasance in public office. We will not be publishing the Government's defence document for the time being, but we hope to be able to in due course.
The next step is for RPSAG, through its lawyers, to prepare a case processing document for the Court. This will, amongst other things, seek "directions" from the Judge appointed to hear the case.
Thursday 4th March RPSAG has now received the Government's response to the Claim it issued in the High Court on 2nd December 2003 for misfeasance in public office. The Committee will be studying the response over the next few days and will meet with its legal advisers on Thursday 11th March to agree the next steps.
Thursday 18th December 2003 On Tuesday 2nd December RPSAG issued a Claim in the High Court against the Government on behalf of 44,918 former shareholders in Railtrack. Click here for RPSAG's Press Release. Click here for the following day's Press coverage. Click here for the text of the letter that has been sent to all RPSAG members who have joined the Legal Action. Click here for the Particulars of Claim.
The Court may allow the Government 3 months or more to respond. We expect to have a legal hearing within two years. Appeals may make the final timescale later, but we would hope to have a final result within three years.
We will give more information as soon as we are able to.
Friday 28th November - progress report on the Legal Action The Committee met on Thursday 27th November. It is expected that proceedings will be started before Christmas. We will give more news as soon as we are able to.
Friday 31st October - progress report on the Legal Action The Committee met on Thursday 30th October. It is expected that proceedings will be started before Christmas.
Friday 24th October - progress report on the Legal Action We can confirm that HM Government has appointed solicitors Clyde & Co to act on its behalf in respect of RPSAG's Claim against it.
RPSAG, through its solicitors Edwin Coe, is currently in correspondence with Clyde & Co.
We will give more news as soon as we are able to.
Monday 11th August RPSAG has now taken the first steps in its litigation. The ball is now in the court of the Secretary of State. On the advice of our legal team, we are making no further comment at this time.
Friday 1st August The Committee met on 24th July and spent several hours discussing in detail the latest draft of the Particulars of Claim. Some important new points emerged - some of which are the result of continuing research - and it was agreed that these needed to be incorporated. Further significant pieces of information have been identified since this meeting, and these are also being incorporated into the document.
The Committee is conscious that RPSAG members are keen to get the Particulars of Claim completed and delivered to Alistair Darling as soon as possible, and acknowledges that there has been some slippage. However, the document must be complete and correct in its presentation of all the relevant facts before we sign it off. We hope this will happen within a few days.
Delivery to Alistair Darling will happen within days of approval by the Committee, marking a key milestone in our campaign for a just settlement for our members.
Once we have delivered our Particulars of Claim to Alistair Darling, we must then allow him a reasonable time to respond. The Committee is still hoping for a negotiated settlement, and that HM Government will be ready to agree fair and just compensation for the losses suffered by RPSAG members as a result of its actions which culminated in Railtrack being forced into administration on 7th October 2001.
However, if the response provides no basis for a settlement, we will issue a writ against Alistair Darling in the High Court. This could happen by October 2003 (ie after the summer recess).
What happens after that will depend on the response from Alistair Darling.
We will not be publishing our Particulars of Claim unless and until a writ is issued in the High Court.
The expected timetable is based on the latest forecast of the work our legal team has to get through and the time taken up by the legal process. It may change: it will be updated as we get new information and as events unfold.
Thursdays 20th March - 24th July 2003 The Committee met on most Thursdays during this period, focusing primarily on the preparation of the Particulars of Claim (POC) and the research effort needed to ensure that all relevant material is included. Whilst acknowledging the workload involved in researching and documenting the facts that need to be included in the POC, the Committee remains committed to completing the POC within a week or two.
Thursday 13th March The Committee met on Thursday 13th March with its legal team, and discussed with Michael Crystal QC some of the key issues of the legal campaign, details of which must remain confidential at this stage. The timetable for the initial stages of this process has changed from that published earlier, as it was agreed that it would be beneficial to allow more time for the preparation of the Particulars of Claim. It is now expected that:
Thursday 6th March - Communicating with our members On 6th March RPSAG sent a communication to all contributors to its Legal Action Fund. We used email for those contributors who have given us an email address, and sent a letter by second class post to the remainder (and those whose emails bounced back).
We asked those we hard-mailed for an email address, as emailing is quicker and cheaper. Of these, several thousand have already given us email addresses, which will reduce the cost of future mailings. However, the Committee recognises the importance of keeping all its members and contributors to the Legal Action Fund informed, and we will continue to use hard-mailing for those without access to the Internet.
Click here for a copy of the letter (the email is similar).
Thursday 20th February The Committee met on Thursday 20th February, and again discussed the forthcoming legal action, details of which must remain confidential at this stage.
The Committee agreed to renew RPSAG's contracts with its database manager, Bureau Solutions of Colchester, and its response handling manager, Inchbrook Mailing Services of Bristol [renamed Orchestra Bristol from June 2003 - www.orchestragroup.co.uk]. Both have provided an excellent service and the Committee is pleased that these partnerships will continue.
Thursday 6th February - planning our legal action The Committee met on Thursday 6th February, and again discussed the forthcoming legal action, details of which must remain confidential at this stage.
The Committee again reviewed its long term administration needs, how it can communicate with members, and how it can best deal with members' letters and phone calls. Significant costs are involved - a mailing to all our members costs around £20,000, and providing a call centre service costs £2 or more per call as well as a hefty fixed charge.
Thursday 30th January The Committee met on Thursday 30th January, and again discussed some aspects of the forthcoming legal action which must remain confidential at this stage.
Thursday 23rd January The Committee met on Thursday 23rd January, and again discussed details of the forthcoming legal action. We need to keep some of these details confidential, but are conscious of the need to keep those who have contributed informed.
Thursday 16th January - planning our strategy for legal action The Committee met on Thursday 16th January. The Legal Action Fund now stands at £2,260,463, with contributions continuing to come in from new members wishing to join our legal action. The money we raise in excess of the £2 million target will be extremely useful. It will give our legal team greater flexibility, and help us with campaign expenses such as PR, communications and research. This will add to the overall effectiveness of our campaign and increase our prospects of success.
The meeting was almost entirely concerned with the planning of our legal action, details of which must remain confidential at this stage. However, the Committee recognises the need to keep contributors to the Legal Action Fund as fully informed as possible, and ways of achieving this were discussed.
In addition, the Committee would like RPSAG members who have not yet contributed to the Legal Action Fund to know that they still have an opportunity to join a well-organised campaign which is going forward.
The Committee does not know how a favourable judgment may be expressed by the Court. It is only by contributing to the Legal Action Fund that RPSAG members can participate in the legal action process and be sure of sharing in a favourable outcome of that process.
10th January 2003 - The liquidators have paid out, so it's a good time to contribute, if you haven't already! RT Group's liquidators paid out the first instalment of 200p per share on 10th January. If you did not receive your letter, or have any other questions about this payout, please contact 0870 702 0104.
If you have not yet contributed to our Legal Action Fund, this will be an ideal opportunity to do so. By contributing just 10p of this 200p per share, you can join RPSAG's legal action.
Accepting this payment and cashing your cheque will not affect your rights to join and benefit from RPSAG's legal action.
Thursday 9th January - we're launching our legal action! The Committee met on Thursday 9th January 2003. The Legal Action Fund now stands at £2,165,821, with a few hundred Credit Card transactions still to be processed. We estimate we will reach not less than £2.25 million.
The target of £2 million we set ourselves to start legal action has been reached. So the Committee has to-day - with great pleasure and a sense of real achievement - formally and unanimously agreed to launch legal proceedings against HM Government on behalf of the 32,000 RPSAG members who have contributed to the Legal Action Fund. A number of detailed actions were agreed to set this process in motion. Click here for Press Release.
The Committee also agreed that for the time being, and at least until 31st January 2003, it will continue to accept new members into RPSAG and contributions to the Legal Action Fund. Click here to join us now!
The Committee does not know how a favourable judgment may be expressed, and it is only by joining RPSAG and contributing to the Legal Action Fund that Shareholders can be sure of sharing in a favourable judgment.
For an archive of earlier RPSAG's campaign news, click here
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Page updated Friday, October 28, 2005 . |
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