Part 2: Claims Management Services Charges for claims management services Section 32: PPI claims: interim restriction on charges imposed by legal practitioners after transfer of regulation to FCA
This section requires the Law Society of England and Wales, the General Council of the Bar and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, after the transfer of regulation from the Claims Management Regulator to the Financial Conduct Authority, to enforce the interim fee cap in respect of charges imposed by those they regulate for certain claims management services provided in connection with a PPI claim. This section is necessary because the Financial Conduct Authority will not be regulating charges imposed by those regulated by the aforementioned bodies.
	Subsection (1) sets out the general prohibition: a legal practitioner must not charge a claimant, or enter into an agreement that would require a claimant to pay, for relevant claims management activity provided in connection with a PPI claim, an amount that exceeds the interim fee cap. Relevant claims management activity means claims management activity which would be regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority if carried out by a non-lawyer, but does not include any services which are reserved legal activities (such as exercising a right of audience or conducting litigation).
	Subsection (2) applies subsections (2) to (5) and (7) of section 30. Although any breach of subsection (1) would not be actionable as a breach of statutory duty, where a breach has occurred, a claimant is entitled to recover any payment in excess of the cap and any provision(s) in an agreement to pay in excess of the fee cap would be unenforceable. The duty on the relevant regulators under section (30)(4) to ensure that they have appropriate arrangements for monitoring and enforcing the interim fee cap and the power enabling them to make rules for the purpose of doing so, if required, apply for the purposes of this section.
	Subsections (5) and (7) of section (30) which deal with the meaning of "regulated person", "relevant regulator" and "reserved legal activity" also apply to this section except that the references to "regulated claims management services" and "regulated persons" should be substituted as references to "regulated claims management activity" and "legal practitioners" respectively.
	These provisions will apply once the transfer of claims management services regulation to the Financial Conduct Authority has taken place, and will last, in the case of legal practitioners for whom the relevant regulator is the Law Society of England and Wales, until the Law Society’s rules on fee capping made under section (33) come into force, and in the case of the other two regulators, 29 April 2020.