Stagecoach Group PLC (LON:SGC), FirstGroup PLC (LON:FGP) and Go-Ahead Group PLC (LON:GOG) are being sued by passengers for overcharging on London’s southern commuter routes.
The class action suit is for compensation up to £100mln.
A case lodged with the Competition Appeal Tribunal today accuses the train operating companies running the Southeastern and South Western networks of overcharging millions of passengers by effectively making them “pay double” for their journeys.
The claim is being led by the former head of research at Citizens Advice, Justin Gutmann, who argues that they should have been offered the chance to pay “boundary fares” for the “gap” between the outer limit of their Travelcard zone coverage and their final destination.
Gutman has commissioned research estimating that 168 million journeys have been affected by the overcharging since October 2015.
Based on the research, compensation claims by UK passengers could amount to £93mln while passengers from outside the UK could claim a further £4.5mln.
Stagecoach ran the South Western franchise until August 2017 while the current operator is a joint venture between FirstGroup and MTR Corporation.
London & South Eastern Railway Limited, trading as Southeastern, is owned by Govia, the Anglo-French joint venture of the Go-Ahead Group and Keolis who own 65% and 35% respectively.
Stagecoach shares dropped 1.5% to 157.6p while FirstGroup eased to 91.30p.
By contrast, shares in Go-Ahead were up slightly to 2,042p.