Bell Yard was instructed by law firm Edwin Coe to secure press coverage to help develop a group of claimants for its truck price-fixing cartel litigation. Edwin Coe filed a group action in November 2018 on behalf of businesses that were seeking damages for fraudulent price-fixing by five major truck manufacturers over a 14-year period, including MAN, Volvo/Renault, Daimler/Mercedes, Iveco and DAF. It is estimated that some 10 million trucks were sold across the EU during the 1997-2011 period and that each one may have been overpriced by up to £10,000 as a result of the price-fixing cartel.

Bell Yard’s role was to generate press coverage about the filing in order to encourage further businesses to sign up, thereby expanding the claimant class. We drafted and issued a press release to announce the launch of the class action and explained the basis for the action, targeting specialist trade media in the retail, building and construction, logistics, farming and haulage industries as well as national and legal press. The task also involved explaining how Edwin Coe’s group action was distinct from four separate actions which had previously been filed.

We secured 15 hits in specialist press, 4 hits in legal press and an article in the national media.