The Group Litigation Order, explained
The Group Litigation Order is one of the most powerful procedural tools available to English courts, yet it is routinely misunderstood by the businesses and practitioners who encounter it most.
The Group Litigation Order, explained
England's Group Litigation Order is a procedural mechanism that can reshape the commercial exposure of any large organisation facing coordinated legal challenge. Despite its significance, the GLO is frequently treated as a procedural footnote rather than the strategic instrument it actually is. Practitioners who understand its architecture can use it to manage risk, control costs, and set the terms on which mass disputes are resolved. Those who do not understand it tend to discover its implications at the worst possible moment.
This essay explains what a Group Litigation Order is, how it operates in practice, where the common misconceptions arise, and what the commercial consequences look like for defendants, claimant representatives, and litigation funders alike. It is written for operators who need to understand the mechanism clearly, not for those who want a surface-level summary.
What the market usually gets wrong
The most persistent misconception about the Group Litigation Order is that it functions like a class action in the American sense. It does not. The GLO is a case management tool. It does not create a single consolidated claim, it does not automatically bind absent parties, and it does not produce a judgment that sweeps up every affected individual in one stroke. What it does is allow the court to manage a group of claims that share common or related issues of fact or law under a single procedural umbrella.
This distinction matters enormously in practice. Under a GLO, individual claimants must still register on a group register maintained by a lead solicitor. Each claimant retains their own cause of action. The court identifies common issues, sometimes called the GLO issues, and determines those issues in a way that binds all registered claimants. But individual issues, such as the specific loss suffered by a particular claimant, may still need to be resolved separately after the common issues have been determined.
The consequence of misunderstanding this architecture is that defendants sometimes underestimate the residual litigation exposure that remains even after a favourable ruling on a common issue. Equally, claimant representatives sometimes overstate to their clients the degree to which a GLO judgment will automatically resolve every aspect of their claim. Neither error serves the interests of the parties involved.
A second common misconception is that a GLO is the only mechanism available for collective redress in England and Wales. In fact, the procedural landscape includes representative actions under Civil Procedure Rule 19.8, opt-out collective proceedings before the Competition Appeal Tribunal, and various sector-specific regimes. The GLO sits within a broader ecosystem, and choosing the right vehicle for a given dispute requires careful analysis of the common issues involved, the size and composition of the potential claimant group, and the forum best suited to the subject matter. Treating the GLO as a default option without that analysis is a mistake that affects both the efficiency of the litigation and the likely outcome.
What actually changes when you look at the operating layer
When a GLO is made, the court appoints a managing judge and typically designates a lead solicitor firm to maintain the group register and coordinate procedural steps. This creates an immediate operational reality that shapes every subsequent decision in the litigation.
For the defendant, the GLO changes the information environment. The group register, once established, provides a clearer picture of the scale of the potential liability than was available before proceedings were coordinated. This can be a double-edged development. On one hand, it allows for more precise reserving and more informed settlement analysis. On the other hand, the public existence of a GLO can itself attract further claimants who were previously unaware of the litigation or uncertain whether to participate. The register is not static, and the number of registered claimants can grow significantly after a GLO is made, particularly if the litigation receives press attention.
For the lead solicitor firm, the GLO imposes significant administrative and fiduciary obligations. Managing a large group register, communicating with hundreds or thousands of individual claimants, and ensuring that common issues are properly identified and argued requires infrastructure that goes well beyond ordinary litigation management. Firms that have not invested in the systems and personnel needed to run group litigation at scale will find the GLO a punishing environment.
For litigation funders, the GLO creates a specific set of underwriting considerations. The separation between common issues and individual issues means that a funder backing a GLO claim must model not just the probability of success on the common issues but also the likely distribution of individual recoveries across the registered group. A favourable ruling on a common issue does not guarantee that every registered claimant will recover a meaningful sum. Funders who fail to model this distribution carefully may find that the aggregate return on a successful GLO litigation is materially lower than a headline judgment figure would suggest.
The court's case management powers under a GLO are also broader than many practitioners appreciate. The managing judge can make directions about the order in which issues are tried, can select test claimants whose cases will be heard as lead cases to inform the determination of common issues, and can make costs orders that affect the entire group. These powers give the court substantial influence over the pace, cost, and ultimate shape of the litigation, and parties who engage constructively with the managing judge's directions tend to fare better than those who resist them.
Commercial consequences
The commercial consequences of a GLO extend well beyond the immediate parties to the litigation. For any business operating at scale in a regulated sector, the existence of a GLO against a competitor or peer organisation is a material signal about the litigation environment in which they operate.
For defendants, the most significant commercial consequence is the aggregation of liability. Individual claims that would be uneconomic to pursue separately become viable once they are coordinated under a GLO. A defendant facing a large number of small individual claims may have calculated, correctly, that few of those claims would ever be brought to judgment in isolation. A GLO changes that calculus entirely. The coordination of claims under a single procedural umbrella means that the aggregate exposure is now real and quantifiable, and the defendant must engage with it accordingly.
Settlement dynamics also shift under a GLO. Because the common issues are determined in a way that binds all registered claimants, a defendant who loses on a common issue faces the prospect of having to resolve every registered claim on terms that reflect that adverse finding. This creates pressure to settle before a common issue determination, but it also creates complexity around the terms of any group settlement. Settling a GLO requires mechanisms for distributing settlement proceeds across the group, for dealing with claimants who do not accept the settlement terms, and for obtaining court approval of the settlement in appropriate cases. These are not trivial administrative tasks, and the costs associated with them can be substantial.
For law firms on the claimant side, the GLO creates both opportunity and risk. The opportunity lies in the ability to build a significant practice around a single coordinated litigation, with the economies of scale that come from managing common issues centrally. The risk lies in the costs exposure that attaches to the lead solicitor role. If the litigation fails on the common issues, the costs consequences for the lead firm and its clients can be severe. Firms that take on GLO leadership without adequate funding arrangements or costs protection in place are taking on a level of financial risk that can threaten the viability of the practice.
Litigation funders have become an increasingly important part of the GLO ecosystem precisely because the costs and risks involved in running large group litigation are beyond the means of most individual claimants. The involvement of a funder changes the dynamics of the litigation in ways that defendants, courts, and claimant representatives all need to understand. Funders bring capital and discipline to the litigation, but they also bring their own commercial objectives, and those objectives do not always align perfectly with the interests of every individual claimant on the group register. Understanding the funder's role and the terms of any funding agreement is essential for anyone seeking to navigate a GLO effectively. For a broader view of how collective redress mechanisms operate in England and Wales, the class actions and collective redress section of this site provides useful context.
Where the market is likely to move next
The GLO has been part of the English procedural landscape since the Civil Procedure Rules introduced it in 2000, but the environment in which it operates has changed significantly in recent years. Several developments are likely to shape how GLOs are used in the coming period.
First, the growth of litigation funding has made it significantly easier to finance large group litigation. This has lowered the practical barrier to bringing a GLO application and has increased the volume of coordinated litigation that the courts are being asked to manage. Courts have responded by developing more sophisticated case management approaches for group litigation, but the pressure on judicial resources remains real.
Second, the expansion of opt-out collective proceedings before the Competition Appeal Tribunal has created an alternative route for competition-related mass claims that is in some respects more powerful than the GLO. The opt-out mechanism means that affected individuals are included in the proceedings automatically unless they choose to exclude themselves, which produces a larger and more representative claimant group than the opt-in GLO register. As the CAT's collective proceedings regime matures, it is likely to attract an increasing share of the mass claims that might previously have been brought as GLOs.
Third, there is growing judicial and academic interest in whether the GLO framework is adequately equipped to handle the very large and complex group litigation that has become more common. Questions about the management of group registers, the selection of test claimants, and the treatment of individual issues after a common issue determination have all attracted attention, and there is a reasonable prospect of further procedural development in this area. Those interested in how litigation funding intersects with these developments may find the writing archive on this site a useful reference point.
What this means in practice
The Group Litigation Order is not a mechanism that operates in the background. When a GLO is made, it changes the legal and commercial position of every party connected to the litigation, and it does so in ways that require careful and informed management from the outset.
For defendants, the priority is to understand the scale of the potential group as early as possible, to engage constructively with the court's case management process, and to develop a clear view of the common issues that will be determinative of the litigation's outcome. Early investment in understanding the GLO architecture pays dividends in the form of better-informed strategic decisions and more realistic settlement analysis.
For claimant representatives, the priority is to ensure that the infrastructure needed to manage a large group register is in place before the GLO is applied for, and that the funding arrangements are adequate to sustain the litigation through to a determination of the common issues. A GLO that runs out of funding before the common issues are resolved is a failure for every claimant on the register.
For funders and insurers, the priority is to model the full distribution of potential outcomes, not just the headline judgment figure, and to ensure that the terms of any funding or insurance arrangement reflect the specific characteristics of the GLO mechanism rather than the assumptions that might apply to a bilateral commercial dispute.
The GLO is a powerful tool. Like all powerful tools, it rewards those who understand how it works and punishes those who do not. If you are navigating a GLO or considering whether one might be appropriate for a dispute you are involved in, the starting point is always a clear-eyed analysis of the common issues, the composition of the potential group, and the procedural options available. For further discussion of how these considerations apply in practice, the about page sets out the analytical approach that informs the work published on this site, and the contact page is available for those who wish to discuss a specific situation directly.
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Fact ledger
Reviewed 24 April 2026 · Primary keyword: group litigation order
A Group Litigation Order is a case management tool introduced under the Civil Procedure Rules that allows English courts to manage multiple claims sharing common or related issues of fact or law under a single procedural framework, without consolidating those claims into a single action.
Defendants and claimant representatives who treat a GLO as equivalent to an American-style class action will systematically misread their exposure and obligations, because individual causes of action and individual issues of loss remain live even after common issues are determined.
Under a GLO, the court designates a managing judge and typically a lead solicitor firm to maintain the group register and coordinate procedural steps, and the court retains broad case management powers including the ability to select test claimants and make costs orders affecting the entire group.
The administrative and financial obligations imposed on lead solicitor firms by the GLO regime are substantial, and firms that take on the lead role without adequate systems, personnel, and funding arrangements expose themselves and their clients to significant operational and costs risk.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal's opt-out collective proceedings regime, which became operational following the Consumer Rights Act 2015, provides an alternative route for competition-related mass claims that automatically includes affected individuals unless they actively exclude themselves, producing a larger and more representative claimant group than the opt-in GLO register.
As the CAT collective proceedings regime matures, practitioners and funders assessing the appropriate procedural vehicle for a mass claim must conduct a careful comparative analysis of the GLO and CAT routes rather than defaulting to the GLO, because the choice of forum materially affects the size of the claimant group, the applicable procedural rules, and the likely settlement dynamics.