CH-2024-000293 - [2025] EWHC 2980 (Ch)

The appellants advance the following challenges to the Ombudsman’s determination in relation to Ms Y:

I suspect that the ground of appeal summarised in paragraph 38.i) is, in reality, an impermissible challenge to a factual finding. The Appellants seek to overcome that by branding it, in paragraph 11, of their skeleton argument, as a challenge to the Ombudsman’s “application of the regulations”. However, that is simply an attempt to give the challenge a different label. For the challenge to succeed, in my judgment, the appellants would need to show either that there was no basis in the evidence for the Ombudsman’s conclusion (or that the conclusion was perverse), or that the Ombudsman took into account irrelevant considerations, or ignored relevant considerations in coming to his conclusion. The ground summarised in paragraph 38.i) would not be made out simply by the appellants showing that the Ombudsman could permissibly have decided that Ms Y ought reasonably to have known of the occurrence of the relevant acts or omissions more than 3 years before she made her complaint.

The appellants focus on the fact that Ms Y knew that she was not receiving any cash in 2015 and had made a complaint to certain other authorities in 2015. However, the Ombudsman expressly took those matters into account. Ms Y was not just complaining about poor service, or failure to respond to requests for information. She was also complaining because she thought that the reason she was not able to access her pension in 2015 was because she had been “scammed”. The Ombudsman was quite entitled to conclude that the fact she made complaints about peripheral matters in 2015 did not mean that she ought reasonably to have known, in 2015, that she had been “scammed”.

Moreover, Ms Y’s concerns about her inability to access her pension in 2015 had apparently been “answered” by Brambles (see paragraph 34.iv)). Given the Ombudsman’s conclusions as to the conduct of the appellants and Brambles in relation to the Schemes, the Ombudsman was quite entitled to conclude that those “answers” counted for little and would not have caused a reasonable person to conclude that they had been “scammed”. Indeed, on the contrary, it was quite open to the Ombudsman to conclude that the answers in 2015 would have caused a reasonable person to conclude that they had not been “scammed” and that there was a more innocent explanation for the non-receipt of cash.

The challenge summarised in paragraph 38.ii) is even weaker. The appellants have not referred to any evidence that was before the Ombudsman as to Ms Y’s medical condition. They make the assertion that Ms Y was not herself claiming that poor health delayed her making a complaint to the Ombudsman. However, since I have not been shown what Ms Y was saying about her health, or the evidence that was before the Ombudsman as to her condition, I have no basis for a conclusion that the Ombudsman’s exercise of discretion under Regulation 5(3) was flawed.

I reject Ground 1 insofar as it seeks to challenge the Ombudsman’s decision affecting Ms Y.