Summary judgment in refunds claim against Ryanair

Andrew Sutcliffe KC and Anthony Pavlovich acted for three entities of On the Beach Group Plc in a successful application for summary judgment against Ryanair.  Ryanair had failed to pay some £2 million in refunds for flights that it had cancelled or changed during the pandemic.  The Commercial Court held that this money should be repaid.

The judgment includes the first judicial analysis of Regulation 29 of the Package Travel and Linked Travel Arrangements Regulations 2018.  This important regulation provides a right of redress to package travel organisers that have needed to cancel holidays because of the actions of third parties.  In this case, the Claimants had already provided refunds to their customers, and they sought to recover the cost of the flights from Ryanair under Regulation 29.

The judgment reaches the same conclusion under the law of unjust enrichment.  Ryanair was unjustly enriched by the refunds provided to the Claimants’ customers, so Ryanair was required to provide refunds to the Claimants.

A copy of the judgment is available here.

Andrew and Anthony were instructed by Gavin Foggo, Rhys Griffiths and Will Farrant of Fox Williams LLP.