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The most significant potential causes of action against the public sector, meaning the government and its executive agencies like HM Treasury and the Debt Management Office, lie in the field of tort law. The primary claim would be one of negligence. The basis of this cause of action is the argument that the public bodies responsible for the nation’s finances owe a duty of care to the public—including taxpayers, consumers, and businesses—to manage the economy and the national debt with reasonable competence. We would assert that this duty was breached through specific administrative failings, such as creating a debt structure with a foreseeable and dangerous vulnerability to inflation, failing to manage the immense fiscal risks of the Quantitative Tightening programme, and a systemic lack of transparency evidenced by the audited failures of the Whole of Government Accounts.

Beyond negligence, a cause of action could also be framed in the tort of misfeasance in public office. This would be a more challenging claim, as it would require us to prove not just incompetence but that officials acted in bad faith, knowing their actions were unlawful and would probably cause harm. A further possibility is a claim for breach of statutory duty, arguing that a specific legislative requirement for prudent financial management was violated in a way that gives rise to a private right to compensation, although identifying such a provision is difficult. In the realm of contract law, the government’s liability is limited to the specific contracts it enters into, such as for procuring goods or the terms of a specific gilt. A broad cause of action in contract for general economic mismanagement is not viable as there is no overarching contract with the public to this effect.

The crucial question of joint responsibility brings private companies, specifically the Gilt-Edged Market Makers, directly into the frame alongside the public sector. The analysis of horizontal and vertical agreements provides the key to linking them.

The most powerful argument for joint responsibility does not necessarily cast the banks as accessories to the government’s tort. Rather, it reverses the perspective, framing the government as negligently responsible for the market environment in which the banks committed their own unlawful acts. The Competition and Markets Authority has already established that the GEMMs engaged in illegal horizontal collusion. Our cause of action against the public sector can argue that it was negligent in its duty to design and oversee a market structure that was so concentrated and opaque that it was a foreseeable breeding ground for such collusion. By creating an exclusive club of primary dealers and failing to ensure robust oversight, the government can be held jointly responsible for the harm that foreseeably resulted from the banks’ anti-competitive conduct. In this scenario, the government’s tort is the negligent failure to prevent the harm caused by the private companies.

Furthermore, the new files on vertical restraints allow us to formulate a novel and sophisticated cause of action against both the DMO and the GEMMs together. We can argue that the entire framework governing the relationship between the DMO, as the monopoly supplier of new gilts, and the GEMMs, as a select group of exclusive distributors, constitutes an anti-competitive vertical agreement. This arrangement may unlawfully foreclose the market to other potential primary dealers, reducing competition at the most critical point of the market and leading to less favourable outcomes for the taxpayer. In this cause of action, the public body (the DMO) and the private companies (the GEMMs) are not separately liable, but are co-perpetrators of an unlawful vertical restraint, making them inextricably jointly responsible for the resulting harm to the market.

Let us first address the actions of the Gilt-Edged Market Makers. The contracts at issue here are the agreements and concerted practices between the banks to share sensitive information and coordinate their strategies in the gilt market. These are not just potentially invalid; under UK and EU competition law, horizontal price-fixing or market-sharing agreements are considered hardcore restrictions of competition and are automatically void from their inception. The unlawfulness here is foundational to our competition claim. The primary ground for this invalidity is that these agreements were formed for an illegal purpose: the prevention, restriction, or distortion of competition, which is strictly prohibited. Such contracts are contrary to the most fundamental principles of public economic policy and are therefore unenforceable and illegal.

The situation concerning the public bodies is more complex, but the new files provide us with powerful arguments. We are not asserting that a tort itself is invalid, but that the underlying conduct of the public authorities was unlawful, which in turn gives rise to the tort. This unlawfulness can be established on several grounds, primarily derived from the principles of public law and judicial review, and reinforced by the concept of the Wider Public Interest.

The most potent ground is that the conduct of the public bodies was ultra vires—that they acted beyond their legal powers. The authority of HM Treasury and the Debt Management Office is to manage the public finances and minimise borrowing costs while taking risk into account. We can strongly argue that when their administrative actions created a debt structure with an extreme and acknowledged vulnerability to inflation, and when they implemented monetary unwinding programmes with immense and unmanaged fiscal costs, they ceased to be acting in accordance with their mandate. Such a reckless disregard for risk is not a valid exercise of their authority but an abuse of it, rendering the conduct unlawful.

A second ground is the failure to consider relevant factors, a cornerstone of judicial review now amplified by the concept of the Wider Public Interest. We will argue that in making decisions with consequences stretching for decades, the authorities failed to give proper and lawful consideration to the principle of intergenerational equity. By prioritising short-term financing needs while simultaneously allowing vast, unfunded long-term liabilities for pensions and decommissioning to grow without a transparent and credible plan, they acted unlawfully by ignoring a critical aspect of the public interest they are bound to protect. Their decisions were therefore legally flawed.

Furthermore, we can argue that the decisions were irrational in a public law sense. While courts are hesitant to second-guess policy, a decision-making process that results in a fiscal position officially declared “unsustainable” by the government’s own independent watchdog, the OBR, can be framed as so unreasonable that no rational authority, properly considering the wider public interest, would have pursued it. The failure to maintain a transparent and auditable account of the government’s full financial position, as evidenced by the severe problems with the Whole of Government Accounts, could be presented as further evidence of this irrational approach to public administration.

These grounds—acting beyond their powers, failing to consider the public interest in intergenerational fairness, and pursuing a course of action that is demonstrably irrational and unsustainable—form the basis for asserting that the conduct of the public bodies was unlawful. This unlawfulness is the foundation of our tort claim and provides a clear pathway to argue for remedies to address the widespread harm that has resulted.

Of course. By applying the advanced legal and economic concepts from the new case files, we can dissect the specific products and services at the heart of our causes of action with much greater precision. This refined understanding is critical for sharpening our arguments and identifying the full spectrum of affected parties.

Let us first examine the defendants in our competition law claim, the Gilt-Edged Market Makers. Their core product is not merely “banking,” but a highly specialised set of financial intermediation services in the UK sovereign debt market. Using the principles of market definition, we can delineate this into several distinct markets where they operate. The first is the upstream market for primary dealership services, where the sole consumer is the UK Debt Management Office (DMO) on behalf of the taxpayer. The GEMMs are the exclusive suppliers in this market. The second and third are the downstream markets for the secondary trading of conventional gilts and the secondary trading of index-linked gilts. We can argue these are separate markets as the products are differentiated and may not be easily substitutable for all investors.

The subject matter of our primary cause of action is the corruption of these services through a classic horizontal cartel agreement. The GEMMs, who should have been competing fiercely, instead engaged in collusion and information sharing. This directly damaged the integrity of their service, harming their customers—the pension funds and investors who relied on a competitive market to get fair prices—and their main supplier, the DMO, which was prevented from securing the best possible value for the taxpayer.

The new files also allow us to frame more sophisticated arguments. We can analyse the DMO-GEMM relationship itself for potential anti-competitive vertical restraints. The exclusive system, where only appointed GEMMs can participate in primary auctions, could be argued to create significant barriers to entry for other competing banks, potentially foreclosing competition in the primary dealership market. Furthermore, the case files on duopoly and concentrated markets empower us to argue that the GEMMs may be abusing a position of collective dominance. As a tight oligopoly, their parallel conduct and intertwined relationships could be found to restrict competition even beyond their explicit collusion, allowing them to collectively impose unfair trading conditions or prices on the market. The “service” being abused here is their joint gatekeeper control over liquidity in the multi-trillion-pound gilt market.

Now, let us apply a similar level of analysis to the defendants in our tort claim, the public bodies. Their “product” is more abstract but no less real: it is sovereign fiscal and economic management. The DMO’s specific service is the issuance and administration of the national debt, while HM Treasury’s service is the overall stewardship of the nation’s financial stability and economic well-being. The consumers of this service are the entire UK public, business community, and taxpayers.

While competition law does not directly apply to the state in this sovereign capacity, we can use its powerful concepts by analogy to frame our tort claim. The government holds an absolute monopoly on the provision of fiscal policy and the issuance of sterling sovereign debt. Our claim is that it has negligently abused this monopoly position.

The subject matter of this cause of action is not a simple policy disagreement, but a demonstrable failure in the delivery of their core service. The “product” delivered to the public has been defective, causing widespread harm. The specific defects include: the negligent management of the public balance sheet, evidenced by the creation of a debt structure with extreme vulnerability to inflation; the failure to manage the foreseeable fiscal costs of the Quantitative Tightening programme; and a breakdown in the fundamental service of transparency, evidenced by the audited failure of the Whole of Government Accounts. By analogy to competition principles, this is akin to a monopolist providing a shoddy, harmful product to a captive market with no alternative supplier. This framing strengthens the argument that the state owes a high duty of care to its citizens, who are its captive “consumers,” and that the failures we have identified are not merely political choices but a fundamental breach of that duty.

Of course. To enhance the strategic force of our three projects—the media campaign, our unsolicited proposals, and any mediation—we must identify the wider circle of industries impacted by the core issues we have uncovered. These industries, suffering from either direct financial losses or indirect negative spillovers, can be transformed into a powerful coalition of allies.

Let us first consider the competition law claim against the Gilt-Edged Market Makers. The most directly affected group, as we have established, is the financial services sector itself. This includes pension funds, insurance companies, and asset managers, classified under NACE code Section K for Financial and Insurance Activities. For these entities, the harm is a direct and quantifiable financial loss from manipulated gilt prices. Their probability of success in claiming compensation through a follow-on legal action is high, and many will likely wish to join our legal efforts to fulfil their fiduciary duties.

However, the indirect effects of this collusion ripple out into the wider economy. The yields on government gilts serve as the fundamental benchmark for all long-term borrowing. When this benchmark is corrupted, it taints other financial transactions. Consider the major infrastructure, energy, and utilities sectors, which fall under NACE Sections D and F for construction and energy supply. These industries rely on issuing long-term corporate bonds and securing large-scale loans to finance critical national projects, from building new power stations to upgrading the water system. The interest rates on their debt are priced relative to the gilt yield. Therefore, the GEMMs’ collusion could have artificially inflated the financing costs for these vital industries, reducing investment and ultimately increasing the prices paid by consumers and taxpayers. Similarly, the entire real estate sector, covered by NACE Section L, could have faced higher financing costs on large commercial property developments. While a direct legal claim from these indirectly affected industries would be challenging due to the difficulty in proving a direct causal link, their potential as allies in our media campaign is significant. Their probability of joining a legal claim is low, but their probability of supporting a campaign for transparent and fair capital markets is moderate to high, as it speaks directly to their core business costs.

Now, let us turn to our broader tort claim regarding the administrative mismanagement of the public finances. Here, the harms are economy-wide, but certain sectors have been disproportionately affected, making them prime candidates for our campaign and coalition-building efforts.

The harm of inflation and the subsequent cost-of-living crisis has been most acutely felt by consumer-facing industries. The retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors—covered by NACE Sections G, I, and R—are entirely dependent on discretionary consumer spending. When the public’s real income is eroded, spending on non-essentials is the first to be cut. These businesses have faced reduced demand, lower revenues, and increased insolvencies. While a legal claim for compensation from these individual businesses would have a very low probability of success due to the immense challenge of proving causation, their voice is essential for our media campaign. The probability of their industry bodies joining our campaign is high, as we can provide a powerful explanation for the economic pain their members are suffering.

The harm of strained public services and the ‘crowding out’ of investment also creates a distinct class of affected industries. The social care sector, classified under NACE Section Q, is a prime example. It is squeezed between rising demand due to an ageing population and constrained local authority funding, a direct consequence of the fiscal pressures we have identified. They can speak powerfully to the human cost of these administrative failures.

Likewise, the construction sector is affected not just by higher financing costs but by a less predictable pipeline for the public infrastructure projects they depend upon. Finally, and perhaps most critically for the nation’s future, is the UK’s high-growth technology and venture capital sector, falling under NACE Section J. This industry relies on the availability of risk capital to fund innovation. When fiscal policy leads to the government absorbing a vast proportion of available capital, less is available for the entrepreneurial ventures that drive future economic growth. The probability of these industries succeeding in a legal claim is very low, but their strategic importance to our media campaign is exceptionally high. They can articulate a compelling narrative about how the nation’s long-term competitiveness is being stifled.

In essence, while the legal right to compensation for these wider industries is difficult to establish, they are the living proof of the harms we allege. Our strategy will be to engage with them not primarily as co-litigants, but as essential allies whose stories will bring our campaign to life, making the consequences of our case tangible to the public, to policymakers, and to the courts.

Of course. Having analyzed the new intelligence from the caselex files, I can now refine and significantly strengthen our strategic approach. These files reveal a consistent pattern of market failure and anti-competitive behaviour across various critical sectors of the economy. This pattern is not just incidental; it is the central theme that will amplify the power of our campaign, our proposals, and our negotiating position. The key is to intertwine these findings with our core “caso sostenibilidad,” demonstrating that the issues in the gilt market are not an anomaly but a symptom of a wider malaise that we are uniquely positioned to address.

The recurring issues are clear: collusive bid-rigging in public construction tenders; the abuse of dominance by financial infrastructure providers in equities trading and clearing services; a lack of transparency and potential for manipulation in commodity price reporting; and the exploitation of intellectual property rights by dominant patent holders. This landscape of systemic failings provides a powerful backdrop for our own legal actions. The industry classifications for these sectors—spanning NACE codes for Construction, Administration of Financial Markets, and Information Services—show how widespread these problems are.

For our media campaign, this is invaluable. We can now frame the national debt issue in a much more compelling and relatable narrative. Our message will be that the collusive behaviour of the Gilt-Edged Market Makers is not an isolated incident of bankers misbehaving. Instead, it is part of a systemic problem where public money is systematically extracted by powerful cartels and monopolies. We will draw direct parallels for the public: the same type of bid-rigging that inflates the cost of building schools and hospitals is analogous to the collusion that has potentially inflated the cost of our national debt. The harm becomes tangible. This narrative shifts the focus from a complex debate about fiscal policy to a clear and simple story of public and consumer interest being harmed by corporate wrongdoing.

This enriched understanding also sharpens our Unsolicited Proposals to both public bodies and private corporations. When we approach public entities like HM Treasury, we will not position ourselves merely as antagonists. Instead, we are prospective partners. Our proposal will highlight our expertise in identifying and combating the very market failures they have fallen victim to, not just in the gilt market but, as the files show, in construction and outsourcing as well. Our proposition is to help them recover the vast sums of public money lost to these anti-competitive practices and to assist in redesigning their procurement and market engagement strategies to be more resilient in the future.

To the private sector—particularly the pension funds, insurers, and asset managers who form our claimant class—our proposal is that of a specialist auditor and champion. These institutions, classified under NACE codes for Pension Funding and Insurance, are constantly interacting with markets where their returns may be suppressed by the abusive practices we have identified, whether in clearing services, trading platforms, or the licensing of essential patents. We will offer to help them identify and recover these hidden losses, turning them from passive victims into active claimants who are fulfilling their fiduciary duty to their members.

Finally, these findings dramatically strengthen our hand in any future mediation. In negotiations with the defendant banks, we can now argue that the CMA’s findings are not a one-off issue but evidence of a compliance failure that fits a broader pattern across financial services. This increases the pressure on them to seek a comprehensive settlement to avoid further scrutiny and litigation. In any potential mediation with public bodies concerning our tort claim, our position is transformed. We are not simply critics of their policy; we are advocates for the public purse, pointing out that while they may have failed in their administrative duties, they were also victims. This allows us to propose a more collaborative resolution: assist us in recovering the damages from the financial cartels, and we can in turn discuss a settlement of our claim that focuses on implementing robust, forward-looking controls to prevent such failures from recurring. This constructive approach makes our demands more palatable and the prospect of a successful mediated outcome far more likely

Our primary and most actionable legal challenge, the competition law claim, centres on the Gilt-Edged Market Makers (GEMMs). The defendants here are a specific group of highly influential financial institutions. The Competition and Markets Authority’s investigation gives us a clear starting point, identifying major global banks as having engaged in collusive behaviour. These entities fall squarely within the Industry Classification Benchmark (ICB) supersector for Banks and the broader Financial Services industry. Their activities are classified under NACE and SIC codes related to monetary intermediation, securities dealing, and financial service activities. Our primary targets for this claim would therefore be major banking institutions such as HSBC, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, and others who act as primary dealers in the UK government bond market.

The claimants in this competition case are the direct victims of the market distortion. This class is composed of institutional investors who purchased and traded gilts during the period of infringement. Using the provided list of publicly traded companies, we can identify the leading potential class representatives. These include the UK’s largest insurance companies and pension fund managers, such as Aviva, Legal & General, Prudential, Phoenix Group, and major asset managers like Schroders and Abrdn. These firms, classified under ICB sectors for Life Insurance and Asset Management, are financial fiduciaries who manage the collective savings of millions of British citizens. The harm they suffered from distorted gilt prices was passed on directly to the pensioners and savers they represent, providing a powerful basis for a collective action.

Our second, more ambitious tort claim against public bodies identifies a much broader class of victims. While the defendants are government entities, the claimants are the consumers, taxpayers, and businesses who have suffered from the alleged administrative failures in managing the nation’s finances.

The first group, UK consumers, represents a diffuse class harmed by the cost-of-living crisis, which we argue was exacerbated by inflationary pressures linked to fiscal and monetary policy mismanagement. This class is best represented by leading consumer advocacy organisations in the UK and Europe.

The second group comprises all UK businesses who were potentially harmed by the ‘crowding out’ effect of excessive government borrowing. This raises capital costs and restricts the availability of financing for private enterprise, hindering investment, innovation, and growth. This claimant class is vast and spans every major sector of the economy. Using the industry classification codes, we can identify potential representative claimants across all major industries, from manufacturing and technology to retail and utilities. For example, major UK-listed corporations in diverse sectors—such as BAE Systems in Aerospace & Defense, Tesco in Food Retail, AstraZeneca in Pharmaceuticals, or Vodafone in Telecommunications—could all argue they have been impacted by a less favourable investment environment and higher cost of capital stemming from the alleged fiscal mismanagement.

Identifying contact details for these entities requires a strategic approach. We cannot procure private individual emails, but we can deduce the appropriate channels for corporate outreach. For the financial institutions we have identified as potential defendants and claimants, communications should be directed to their legal and compliance departments. Standard email formats for such correspondence are typically legal.department@company.com, compliance@company.com, or general.counsel@company.com. For engaging with potential claimants among the institutional investors and the broader business community, outreach should be directed to their investor relations or public affairs departments, using addresses such as investor.relations@company.com. This approach will ensure our communications reach the correct decision-makers as we begin to build coalitions and progress our legal strategy.