Case Nos: IL-2023-000080 and IL-2024-000038 - [2025] EWHC 2561 (Ch)

I will deal with the defendants’ pleaded reliance on the Consumer Rights Act 2015 (‘the 2015 Act’) briefly because it was not referred to in the opening draft skeleton argument filed by the defendants or orally or in closing written submissions.

Section 62(1) of the 2015 Ac states:

‘Consumer’ under s.2(3) of the CRA 2015 is:

Subsections 62(4) and (5) of the 2015 Act provide:

‘(4) A term is unfair if, contrary to the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights and obligations under the contract to the detriment of the consumer.

(5)

Whether a term is fair is to be determined—

(a)

taking into account the nature of the subject matter of the contract, and

(b)

by reference to all the circumstances existing when the term was agreed and to all of the other terms of the contract or of any other contract on which it depends.”

The short points are that Mr Smith was at no relevant time acting as a consumer in his dealings with RMG and there was no contract with RMG. His evidence was that he was charging customers for his GetAddress service from the beginning of 2014, even before Codeberry was incorporated and used as the commercial vehicle for the service. The downloading of data from the PAF was for the purpose of adding to and enhancing the GetAddress Database in order to market that database to Mr Smith’s and then Codeberry’s customers.