INVESTEGATE
FOREIGN DIMENSIONS
The most significant international dimension arises from the very nature of the private contractors the Home Office uses. These are not purely UK-based businesses. For instance, Serco Group plc, one of the primary contractors, is a large British multinational company with extensive operations overseas, including in Australia where it has also run controversial immigration detention centres. This international presence is crucial. Any legal action or campaign against their UK operations will have reputational and potentially legal spillover into their other markets. Furthermore, their corporate structure and financing involve numerous international investors and financial institutions. By tracing their ownership through global financial markets, we can identify a class of international stakeholders and potential allies in the investment community who may be concerned about the risks associated with the company’s involvement in our case.
Another key international connection lies with the government of Rwanda. Although the plan to send asylum seekers there was cancelled by the current UK government, the previous administration entered into a formal Migration and Economic Development Partnership with the Rwandan government. Under this agreement, the UK made substantial payments, reportedly over £290 million, directly to the government of Rwanda. This makes the Rwandan government a direct contractual counterparty and a necessary collaborator in the previous government’s unlawful policy. While pursuing a direct claim against a sovereign state is complex, the existence of this state-to-state contract is a critical piece of evidence in our claim against the UK government for wasting public funds on an illegal enterprise.
We must also consider the home countries of the asylum seekers themselves. While these are numerous, countries from which large numbers of asylum seekers have fled, such as Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and Eritrea, are relevant jurisdictions. The systemic delays and failures in the UK asylum system have a direct tortious impact on the nationals of these countries. This opens up the possibility of coordinating with human rights organisations and legal groups within the diaspora communities from these nations. They can be powerful campaign partners, providing testimony on the human cost of the UK’s administrative failures and the conditions from which people have fled, thereby strengthening the public and moral dimensions of our case.
Finally, the supply chains that support the UK asylum accommodation system have an international dimension. The provision of services within hotels and accommodation centres, such as food, transport, and security, often involves large multinational corporations with complex international ownership structures. For example, global catering companies or security firms headquartered in other European countries or North America could be involved as subcontractors. Identifying these foreign companies is vital as they may be co-participants in the tort of negligence if their services are substandard. Their foreign registration may also make them subject to different regulatory and reporting standards in their home jurisdictions, such as human rights due diligence laws, which we could leverage to apply pressure and seek accountability outside of the UK courts.
FOIS
For our cause of action related to Safeguarding Failures and Breach of Statutory Duty, we have a definitive and powerful FOI from the High Court. In the case brought by ECPAT UK against the Home Office and Kent County Council, the court ruled in July 2023 that the Home Office’s practice of housing lone child asylum seekers in hotels was unlawful. The judgment explicitly states that this practice breached the statutory duties owed to children under the Children Act 1989. This is a conclusive finding of wrongdoing by a senior court. We can directly “follow on” from this, not to re-argue the unlawfulness of the policy, but to bring claims for compensation on behalf of every child who was placed in this unlawful system, arguing that the breach of duty caused them direct harm. This finding gives us immense leverage in any legal action or mediation.
Regarding the cause of action for Systemic Processing Delays, a High Court judgment from March 2025 provides a crucial FOI. While not a finding on the delay itself, the court ruled against the Home Office’s attempts to withdraw thousands of asylum claims to “clear the backlog” and confirmed that the Asylum Support Tribunal has the jurisdiction to examine the validity of these withdrawals. This judgment is a finding that the Home Office’s method of dealing with the backlog was legally flawed. It substantiates our claim that the department’s approach to the backlog is not just inefficient but involves legally questionable practices. This supports our broader argument that the delays are a result of systemic mismanagement and can be used to strengthen claims for damages on behalf of individuals left in limbo for unreasonable periods.
For our causes of action concerning Financial Mismanagement and Poor Contractor Oversight, the most powerful findings come not from a court but from an independent regulator acting as an official watchdog. The National Audit Office (NAO) report published in May 2025 constitutes a damning FOI. The NAO found that the Home Office has limited control over asylum accommodation costs, which have escalated from an initial estimate of £4.5 billion to a projected £15.3 billion over the life of the contracts. The report also found that hotel accommodation accounts for a vastly disproportionate 76% of the annual cost while housing only 35% of the people. Crucially, the NAO found that between September 2021 and August 2024, the financial penalties deducted from contractors for underperformance were minimal, amounting to only £4 million, less than 1% of their revenue. These are not allegations; they are audited findings of fact from Parliament’s independent auditor. We can “follow on” from this report by using its data as incontrovertible evidence of the Home Office’s irrational expenditure and its failure to manage its contracts, forming the bedrock of our negligence claim on behalf of taxpayers.
Furthermore, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has also issued findings that support our case. In a report from February 2025, the PAC identified a “dysfunctional culture” at the Home Office that allows key financial controls to be abandoned. It cited the example of the Northeye site, where the Home Office paid more than double the market price for a property it now cannot use, as evidence of a culture that prioritises “appearing to address the issue” over actual value for money. This finding directly supports our claim of irrationality and a breach of the fiduciary duty owed to the public. These official reports from the NAO and PAC are the critical FOIs that empower our legal challenges regarding financial mismanagement and contractor failure.
COAS
The core of our legal strategy rests on a series of interconnected claims against the United Kingdom’s Home Office. The most powerful cause of action is in public law, where we will seek a judicial review to declare the primary asylum accommodation contracts unlawful. The grounds for this are that the Home Office acted ultra vires, or beyond its legal powers, by entering into agreements so profoundly wasteful that they fail to represent a rational use of public money. This is complemented by the ground of irrationality, arguing that no reasonable public body, acting properly, would continue to spend billions on high-cost hotels while ignoring cheaper, more suitable alternatives. This entire framework is underpinned by a breach of the government’s fiduciary duty to protect the taxpayer and manage public funds with prudence. In tort law, we can pursue a direct claim of negligence against the Home Office. We will argue it owed a duty of care to the UK taxpayer to be fiscally responsible and a separate duty of care to the asylum seekers to ensure their safety and welfare. The department breached these duties through its mismanagement and safeguarding failures, causing quantifiable financial loss to the public and direct harm to vulnerable individuals. Furthermore, the past policy of housing children in hotels constitutes a clear breach of statutory duty under the Children Act and the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act, for which the state is liable.
Turning to the private sector, our causes of action against the contractors who manage and profit from this system are equally robust. In tort, a claim of negligence can be brought directly against these companies on behalf of the asylum seekers in their care. The contractors assume a duty of care the moment they take responsibility for housing an individual. Any failure to provide safe, sanitary, and suitable conditions that leads to physical or psychological harm is a breach of that duty for which they are liable to pay compensation. We can also build a novel case for unjust enrichment, arguing that these firms have profited excessively at the taxpayer’s expense, not through fair competition or efficient service, but as a direct result of government failure and a dysfunctional market. Their enrichment is unjust because it is derived from a system that creates public harm.
In contract law, while we are not party to the agreements between the Home Office and the contractors, our campaign will demand that the government pursue the contractors for fundamental breach of contract. The evidence of poor service delivery, safeguarding failures, and a failure to provide value for money is overwhelming. The government’s own failure to enforce these contracts and impose penalties is a key part of its mismanagement, and we will publicly and legally compel them to hold these companies to account. Beyond this, we can also investigate causes of action under competition law. The market for asylum accommodation appears to be a highly concentrated oligopoly. We can explore whether the major contractors have engaged in anti-competitive practices, such as collusive bidding or creating barriers to entry for smaller providers, which would constitute an unlawful cartel or an abuse of a collective dominant position, further harming the taxpayer through inflated prices.
WPIS / TORTS
From the collection of documents on Works of Public Interest (WPI), I have extracted a powerful constitutional argument that will serve as the foundation of our entire case. The core principle I have drawn from these papers is that public authorities like the Home Office do not just have a narrow duty to follow procedural rules, but a much deeper obligation to make decisions that properly serve the public interest. These documents allow us to define the “product” of the asylum system—a fair, efficient, and humane process that maintains public safety and fiscal prudence—as a fundamental Work of Public Interest. The “why” of this extraction is that it allows us to frame the government’s failures not as mere errors, but as a complete dereliction of this core duty. For our legal case, this means we can argue that the asylum accommodation contracts are unlawful because they actively undermine, rather than serve, the public interest. For our campaign, the WPI concept is invaluable; it allows us to speak in clear, moral terms about the government failing to protect the public good, which is a far more compelling narrative than dry legal jargon.
From the document titled Tort Claims Against UK Regulators, I have extracted the precise legal methodology for holding the state financially accountable for its negligence. It outlines the necessary steps to prove that a public body owed a duty of care, that it breached this duty, and that this breach caused quantifiable loss. This is the practical toolkit for our compensation claims. I have extracted this because it allows us to translate our general findings about waste and harm into a specific legal claim for damages. For our case, we will use this framework to argue that the Home Office owed a clear duty of care to the UK taxpayer to manage public funds with reasonable prudence, and that spending billions on overpriced hotels was a negligent breach of that duty. We will likewise argue it breached its duty of care to the asylum seekers in its charge. For our mediation projects, this is crucial. It provides the legal basis for calculating the financial compensation we will demand on behalf of the public, turning our arguments into a concrete monetary figure that the government must address.
Finally, from the documents concerning Judicial Review, I have extracted the specific legal levers we will pull to have the government’s decisions and contracts formally declared unlawful in court. These papers detail the grounds of illegality, irrationality, and procedural impropriety. The reason for extracting this is that it gives us the precise legal language and arguments to use in our litigation. It allows us to connect the WPI framework directly to established legal challenges. We will argue that the asylum contracts are illegal because they are ultra vires—beyond the Home Office’s power to enter into wasteful and irrational agreements. We will argue the decision to rely on hotels was irrational because it failed to consider obvious, cheaper alternatives. The threat of a successful judicial review, as outlined in these documents, is our primary source of leverage. For our campaign, it allows us to state unequivocally that we believe the government’s actions are unlawful and we are challenging them in court. In any mediation, the credibility of our threat to succeed in judicial review will be what forces the government to the negotiating table and compels them to remedy the situation.
The most significant ground is that the contracts, particularly the multi-billion pound Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts, are ultra vires, meaning they are ‘beyond the powers’ of the public authority that entered into them. The Home Office does not have unlimited power; its authority to spend public money is granted by Parliament for the purpose of maintaining a fair and functional asylum system. We can argue that in entering into contracts that result in irrational, excessive, and wasteful expenditure, the Home Office has acted so unreasonably that it has stepped outside its lawful authority. The decision to pay vastly inflated prices for hotel rooms over readily available, cheaper alternatives is not a reasonable exercise of discretion but a failure to act as a proper steward of public funds. This failure is so profound that it arguably makes the resulting contracts an unlawful use of public money and therefore invalid.
A second, closely related ground is Wednesbury unreasonableness, a core principle of judicial review. We would argue that the decision to continue and expand the use of high-cost hotels, despite full knowledge of the immense financial damage and the availability of cheaper, more suitable options, is a decision so unreasonable that no reasonable public authority could ever have come to it. This irrationality taints the entire contractual framework. The contracts are not the result of a rational policy choice but are a direct consequence of a separate systemic failure—the inability to process asylum claims efficiently. Therefore, the contracts themselves are founded upon and serve to perpetuate an irrational state of affairs, rendering them legally vulnerable.
Third, we can establish grounds based on a breach of the fiduciary duty owed to the public and taxpayers. The government and its officials have a fundamental, albeit not always easily litigated, duty to manage public funds with prudence and integrity. The documents on Works of Public interest reinforce this. The asylum contracts represent a colossal failure of this duty. When a system is structured in a way that generates billions in waste, it is a breach of the trust that underpins public administration. This breach provides a powerful moral and legal basis to challenge the validity of the contracts that facilitate such financial harm.
Furthermore, any contracts related to the now-abandoned plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda would be challengeable on the grounds that they were entered into for an unlawful purpose. The Supreme Court ruled the scheme itself to be unlawful. Therefore, any contract designed to facilitate this unlawful scheme, whether with the government of another country or with private companies like airlines, is necessarily voidable because its entire purpose was illegal under both domestic and international law.
Finally, a crucial ground for challenging the lawfulness of the perpetrators’ conduct is the failure to consider mandatory relevant factors while taking into account irrelevant ones. In deciding to award and manage these contracts, the Home Office appears to have been overwhelmingly driven by the irrelevant factor of administrative convenience in the face of its own processing backlog. Conversely, it has demonstrably failed to give proper weight to mandatory relevant factors, including its legal duty to secure value for money for the taxpayer, its statutory safeguarding duties towards vulnerable asylum seekers, and the direct harm that prolonged hotel stays cause to individuals’ welfare. As the legal frameworks you provided make clear, a decision-making process that ignores its core legal obligations in this way is unlawful, and the contracts stemming from it are consequently invalid.
PS
The central “product” at the heart of our primary cause of action for financial mismanagement is what the Home Office procures under the Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts. This is not simply “housing” but a bundled service we can define as Contingency and Dispersed Asylum Seeker Accommodation Services. The subject of our legal action is the systemic and irrational over-reliance on the most expensive version of this product: the Contingency Accommodation component, specifically hotel-based housing. This service, provided by the contractors, includes not just the provision of a room but also ancillary services such as basic security, food provision, and logistical management. The direct consumers are the asylum seekers themselves, who are the end-users of the service. However, the ultimate purchaser and the primary financial victim is the UK taxpayer, making them a crucial consumer type for our class action.
The competitor landscape for this product is a key area of our investigation. The direct competitors who have been harmed are the providers of the alternative, cheaper product: Dispersed Accommodation. These are the small to medium-sized private landlords and social housing associations across the country who can offer housing at a fraction of the cost of hotels. By creating a crisis through processing delays and then awarding massive, bundled contracts for high-cost contingency accommodation, the Home Office and its primary contractors have distorted the market, freezing out these more efficient and cost-effective competitors.
Flowing from this is the secondary service, which we can term Asylum Claims Lifecycle Support. This encompasses the wraparound services that should, in a functioning system, support an asylum seeker from arrival to a final decision. The systemic delays we have identified mean this “service” has been degraded into a state of prolonged, harmful waiting. The consumers are again the asylum seekers, who suffer direct harm from the uncertainty and its impact on their mental health, and the taxpayer, who funds this inefficient and extended period of state support. The “competitors” in this context are a functioning, efficient state apparatus or alternative models of processing that could deliver timely decisions, thus dissolving the need for prolonged and expensive support services.
Furthermore, within the cause of action for poor contractor oversight, the specific service is Contract and Performance Management by the Home Office. The government is the consumer of this internal service, and its failure to procure and manage its own contracts effectively is the root of the problem. The harm spills over to the taxpayer, who pays for this failure. The “competitors” to this flawed internal service are established best practices in public procurement and contract management, which have been demonstrably ignored.
Finally, the service subject to our safeguarding failures cause of action is Provision of Safe and Suitable Accommodation for Vulnerable Persons, with a particular focus on Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children. The direct consumers are these highly vulnerable individuals. The service they received—placement in unsupervised hotels—was found to be unlawful. The direct competitor to this unlawful service is the statutory provision of care through local authorities, which the Home Office and its contractors chose to bypass. This creates a clear case of a harmful, unlawful service being substituted for the correct, lawful one, to the immense detriment of the vulnerable consumer class
Of course. I have analyzed the new documents and extracted the key strategic principles and methodologies from each. I will now explain how this information directly enhances our ASYLUM UK case, our public campaign, and our approach to any potential mediation.
From the economic reports, including the work by Massimo Motta, I have extracted the core analytical framework used to prove complex competition and market failure cases. These documents detail how to rigorously define a relevant market, how to assess whether an entity holds dominant market power, and most importantly, how to construct a “theory of harm” that causally links a perpetrator’s actions to a negative outcome for consumers. This is immensely valuable for our case. It allows us to elevate our argument from a simple complaint about government waste to a sophisticated economic critique. We can now precisely define the “market for asylum accommodation and support services.” We can demonstrate that by awarding massive, non-competitive contracts to a few large providers, the Home Office has created a distorted market where these contractors hold immense power. Our theory of harm, supported by this methodology, is that this market power, combined with a lack of oversight, leads directly to inflated prices and poor quality, causing quantifiable financial damage to the taxpayer and direct harm to the asylum seekers. For any mediation, this provides us with the blueprint for a robust damages model, shifting the negotiation from a political argument to a data-driven discussion of financial loss.
From the paper on settlements, I have extracted the crucial legal and practical considerations that govern the resolution of large-scale claims. The key takeaway is the process and standard for having a collective settlement approved as “just and reasonable” by a court or tribunal. It details how to balance the total settlement sum against the likely strength of the claim, and how legal costs and litigation funding arrangements are scrutinised. This is our end-game playbook. It informs our entire strategy by showing us what a successful resolution looks like and the evidence required to get there. For any mediation project, this knowledge is power. We can structure our proposals in a way that is already aligned with the court’s final approval criteria, making them more credible and harder for the government to dismiss. It also prepares us to critically assess any offer made by the government, ensuring it genuinely compensates the victim classes—taxpayers and asylum seekers—rather than simply covering legal expenses.
The Transparency International report on corruption provides a powerful new lens for our case. I have extracted from it the key “red flags” that indicate a high risk of corruption in public procurement. These include the awarding of contracts without competitive tender, bundling diverse services into single large contracts that only a few incumbents can bid for, a lack of transparency, and poor ongoing contract management. These red flags are a near-perfect match for the fact pattern we have uncovered in the Home Office’s management of the asylum support contracts. While we are not alleging specific criminal acts of bribery, this document allows us to frame the government’s conduct as a catastrophic governance failure that creates the very conditions in which corruption can thrive. For our public campaign, this is an explosive angle. Moving the narrative from “mismanagement” to “creating a high risk of corruption” is a far more compelling and urgent message that will capture the attention of the media and the public.
Finally, from the presentation on the Geo-Stakeholder Solution, I have extracted a practical methodology for data-driven campaigning and class building. The core concept is the use of geographic data to map and understand the impact of public service decisions on specific communities. We will apply this directly to our ASYLUM UK case. For example, we can create maps showing the concentration of high-cost asylum hotels and cross-reference this with data on local rental markets to illustrate how smaller, cheaper housing providers in those exact areas were bypassed. We can overlay this with information on local authority budgets to show the strain on services. This geographic data provides the evidence to transform our national campaign into a series of powerful local stories. It allows us to identify and recruit local stakeholders—from community leaders to councillors—as allies, giving our campaign a granular, real-world impact that is impossible to ignore. It is the tool we will use to find and mobilise the very people harmed by this system.
CASELEX
First, examining the Private Healthcare sector, as detailed in the files, we can see immediate parallels to our ASYLUM UK case. This industry operates under NACE code 86, specifically ‘Human health activities’, and SIC codes within Division 86, such as 86101 for hospital activities. The core issue you have highlighted is the potential for patients, including those funded by the NHS or private insurance, to be overcharged or receive suboptimal care due to a lack of transparency and the immense power of large private hospital groups. Applying our framework, the cause of action is analogous to the financial mismanagement we see in the asylum system. Just as the Home Office overpays for substandard accommodation, the NHS and insured patients may be overpaying for medical procedures due to opaque billing practices and the market dominance of a few large providers. The harm is the direct financial loss to patients and taxpayers. Furthermore, any failure to provide care that meets established standards, resulting in harm to patients, would be a direct parallel to the safeguarding failures in asylum accommodation, constituting a breach of the provider’s duty of care.
The documents concerning HIV treatments point to a specific sub-sector within the Pharmaceutical Industry, which we have previously identified under NACE code 21.20 and SIC code 21200 for the manufacture of pharmaceutical preparations. The situation described, where a company like Gilead Sciences is alleged to have delayed the release of a safer drug to maximise profits from an existing patent, is a stark example of corporate conduct causing widespread harm. This mirrors the logic of our ASYLUM UK case, where systemic inefficiency and poor choices lead to prolonged suffering and increased costs. Here, the alleged perpetrator’s action—delaying a better product—has inflicted direct harm on a vulnerable class of claimants, the patients who were exposed to a more toxic treatment for longer than necessary. The cause of action would be a tort claim for the personal injuries suffered. Horizontally, this conduct harms the public interest by keeping healthcare costs, borne by the NHS and thus the taxpayer, artificially high.
Next, within the Airlines industry, classified under NACE code 51 and SIC Division 51 for Air Transport, you have identified issues around flight refunds and cancellations. The relevant cause of action from our ASYLUM UK case is the systemic failure to adhere to legal duties. Just as the Home Office has failed in its duty to process claims efficiently, airlines have allegedly failed in their statutory duty under regulations like EU261 to provide timely refunds and assistance to passengers. The perpetrators are the specific airlines engaging in these practices. The directly harmed class of claimants are the passengers who are wrongfully denied or delayed their refunds, suffering financial loss and significant inconvenience. The indirect harm is the erosion of consumer trust and the creation of a market where non-compliance becomes a competitive strategy, harming those airlines that do follow the rules. This is a classic case of systemic failure in a regulated industry, ripe for a collective action.
Finally, in the Construction sector, which falls under NACE Section F and SIC Division 41 for the construction of buildings, the files highlight issues such as the use of defective materials and poor building standards. This connects directly to the themes of poor oversight and breach of contract from our asylum case. The perpetrators are the construction firms and developers who cut corners, and potentially the regulatory bodies that fail to enforce standards adequately. The direct harm is suffered by homeowners and tenants, who are left with unsafe or substandard properties and face financial loss for repairs or diminished value. This is a direct breach of contract and a tort of negligence. There is also a significant indirect harm, or negative spillover, on the wider housing market and the insurance industry, which has to bear the cost of these systemic failures. Just as with the private contractors in our asylum case, these construction firms are profiting from a system where oversight is weak and the end-user, in this case the resident, bears the ultimate cost of the failure.
POSSIBLE PERPETRATORS
Our first cause of action, concerning Financial Mismanagement and Irrational Expenditure by the Home Office, is directly enabled by perpetrators operating within two main sectors. The primary actors are the large outsourcing firms contracted to manage asylum support. These companies fall under Business Support Service Activities, particularly SIC code 82990. By procuring vast numbers of hotel rooms at inflated prices instead of more cost-effective dispersal housing, these firms are the vehicle through which taxpayer funds are inefficiently spent. This creates a direct vertical harm to the Private Rented and Social Housing Sector (SIC Division 68: Real estate activities). This industry, which could provide cheaper and more suitable accommodation, is effectively locked out of the market, suffering a direct loss of potential revenue amounting to billions of pounds. Horizontally, the entire Hotels and similar accommodation sector (SIC code 55100, NACE code 55.1) is affected. While some hotel chains profit, the block-booking of entire hotels for asylum accommodation can distort local tourism markets, creating a negative spillover effect that harms smaller, independent hotels and bed & breakfasts who rely on tourist trade, especially in certain regions.
Our second cause of action, Systemic Processing Delays, while a governmental failure, is exacerbated by the private sector’s operational model. The perpetrators here are the same contractors within Business Support Service Activities (SIC 82990) whose business model is predicated on the number of people they accommodate. A system of delays, while not directly caused by them, is a key driver of their revenue from high-cost hotel provision. The primary indirect harm, or negative spillover, from this is inflicted upon the entire UK Labour Market. Every industry, from Construction (NACE Section F) to Information Technology (NACE Section J), suffers from the loss of potential workers and skills, as tens of thousands of asylum seekers are barred from employment for extended periods. This creates an artificial drag on the economy. Furthermore, the prolonged uncertainty and stress caused by these delays places a significant, indirect burden on our Human Health and Social Work Activities (NACE Section Q), with the NHS and mental health services having to treat conditions exacerbated by the Home Office’s administrative failures, a cost borne by the taxpayer.
Finally, for our cause of action related to Poor Contractor Oversight and Safeguarding Failures, the perpetrators are again the primary contractors in SIC Division 82 and their subcontractors in the security and hospitality industries. Their operational failures inflict direct harm on the asylum seekers in their care. However, their actions also cause significant horizontal damage to the reputation of the entire UK Outsourcing and Facilities Management industry. High-profile failures, allegations of profiteering, and poor service delivery tarnish the market as a whole, making it harder for reputable British firms to compete for public contracts and potentially reducing public trust in private provision of public services. This is a significant negative spillover. Vertically, these large contractors, by securing massive, long-term contracts, create significant barriers to entry. This inflicts direct harm on Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the local housing and support services sectors across the country. These smaller firms, who could offer more agile and community-integrated solutions, are unable to compete, leading to market concentration and a lack of innovation. This harms not only the excluded businesses but also the taxpayer, who is left with a less competitive and less resilient market for these vital services.
POSSIBLE VICTIMS
For our primary cause of action, Financial Mismanagement and Irrational Expenditure, the impacts radiate outwards from the core decision to overuse expensive hotels. The most directly harmed industry is the Private Rented and Social Housing Sector, which falls under SIC code 68 for Real estate activities. This sector provides the cheaper, more suitable dispersal accommodation that was the standard model. They have suffered a direct vertical harm, having been effectively bypassed for contracts worth billions of pounds. The probability of these organisations launching their own legal claim for compensation is likely low to moderate, as proving a legal right to a government contract is challenging. However, their probability of joining our media campaign is exceptionally high. They are natural allies who can provide concrete data on the cost-effectiveness of their model versus hotels, giving our campaign immense factual credibility. Indirectly, the negative spillovers affect almost every other industry. The billions wasted represent a huge opportunity cost to the UK economy. Sectors like Construction (NACE Section F), Healthcare (NACE Section Q), and Education (NACE Section P) are all indirectly harmed, as this public money could have been invested in schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, generating contracts and jobs. The probability of these broad sectors taking direct legal action is negligible, but their representative bodies have a moderate probability of supporting our campaign on the grounds of fiscal prudence and the efficient use of taxpayer funds.
Our second cause of action, Systemic Processing Delays, creates a different set of economic and social harms. The most significant impact is on the entire UK Labour Market. With tens of thousands of people prohibited from working while they wait, often for years, for a decision, their skills and potential are lost to the economy. This is a negative spillover affecting all industries, from Information Technology (SIC Division 62) to Human Health Activities (SIC Division 86), which may be experiencing labour shortages that skilled asylum seekers could fill. The probability of these industries bringing a claim is nil, but the chance of securing their support for our campaign is moderate to high. We can align our humanitarian arguments with their economic interests by advocating for a faster system and the right to work after six months. Another directly burdened sector is our own: Legal Activities (SIC 69100). The chaotic and inefficient system places an immense strain on legal aid services and the capacity of law firms and barristers’ chambers, making it harder for justice to be done effectively. The probability of legal professional bodies joining our campaign is high, as they can speak with authority on the administrative failures of the Home Office.
For our third and fourth causes of action, which are intertwined—Poor Contractor Oversight and Safeguarding Failures—we must look at the private companies delivering services for the Home Office. The key affected industry is Business Support Service Activities, specifically SIC code 82990, which covers the large outsourcing firms that hold the multi-billion-pound Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts. While these companies are our potential co-defendants, their poor performance has a negative horizontal impact on the reputation of the entire Facilities Management and Outsourcing Sector. Reputable firms in this industry may suffer from public mistrust by association. The probability of these firms suing the main contractors is low, but their trade bodies have a moderate probability of joining our media campaign to advocate for better procurement standards that reward quality and value, not just scale. More importantly, the current contracting model creates a vertical harm for smaller, local providers of accommodation and support services. They are often frozen out of the bidding process by the scale of the contracts, preventing fair competition. The probability of these smaller firms bringing a competition law claim is low but not impossible. Their probability of joining our media campaign, however, is very high. They are the perfect allies to expose the failings of the current oligopoly, and they can provide evidence that better, more localised, and more humane services could be provided at a lower cost. This creates a powerful narrative for our public campaign and strengthens any future legal action we choose to bring.
The connection is this: the UK asylum system, particularly the provision of accommodation and support, is not operated solely by the government. It is a multi-billion-pound market where the Home Office acts as the buyer of services, and a host of private companies are the suppliers. These companies, which are potential co-defendants in our case, operate within specific industries. By using the SIC, NACE, and ICB code documents, we can precisely identify these sectors, map out the corporate ecosystem that is profiting from the alleged governmental failure, and in turn, define our stakeholder groups, including the private entities we may bring legal action against alongside the government.
First and foremost is the Accommodation and Hospitality Sector. The extensive use of hotels places companies within SIC code 55100 (Hotels and similar accommodation) and NACE code 55.1 at the heart of our case. The key defendants here are not just the individual hotel chains, but the large private contractors the Home Office pays to procure and manage this accommodation. While their names are not in these specific files, they are identifiable through public contract awards. These companies are the primary co-defendants alongside the Home Office for the irrational expenditure of public funds. The prospective class claimants are the UK taxpayers, who are the victims of the vast overspend, and the asylum seekers themselves, who are forced to live in conditions that are often unsuitable and fail to meet their needs, potentially giving rise to claims for breaches of human rights.
Related to this is the sector for Business Support Service Activities and Facilities Management, which we can identify under SIC Division 82 and NACE Division N. The companies in this industry are responsible for the day-to-day running of asylum accommodation, providing everything from security to food and other support services. These are the entities that hold the multi-billion pound Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts (AASC). Their performance is central to our case. Failures in their service delivery can lead to direct harm to asylum seekers, creating grounds for negligence claims. Furthermore, if their contracts deliver poor value for money, as the National Audit Office reports have suggested, they become party to the financial mismanagement harming the taxpayer claimant class.
The analysis also points us towards the Financial Services and Investment Sector, particularly entities involved in the Activities of head offices and management consultancy (SIC Division 70). The private contractors running the asylum system are often subsidiaries of much larger, often multinational, parent companies. These parent companies, which can be identified using the ICB and ISIN code frameworks for publicly listed entities, are also potential defendants. We can argue that they are ultimately responsible for the conduct of their subsidiaries and are the ultimate beneficiaries of the profits derived from these controversial contracts. This also brings in another class of stakeholders: investors in these publicly traded parent companies. We can argue that if these companies have failed to disclose the significant reputational, legal, and financial risks associated with their reliance on a dysfunctional and inhumane asylum system, they may have misled their investors.
Finally, by identifying these specific sectors, we can better define our claimant classes for campaign and outreach purposes. For example, we can approach trade associations within the UK hospitality sector to understand the impact of the Home Office’s block-booking of hotels. We can also identify the legitimate property and housing businesses (SIC Division 68: Real estate activities) who could have provided cheaper dispersal accommodation but were shut out of the market by the government’s reliance on a handful of large, high-cost contractors. These businesses could be potential claimants in a claim for loss of opportunity.
In essence, the industry code documents allow us to deconstruct the “asylum system” from a purely governmental issue into a specific marketplace. This process illuminates the full cast of corporate actors involved, enabling us to widen our net for co-defendants and more accurately define the multiple classes of victims who have been harmed by the mismanagement of the UK asylum case.
The documents reveal several overarching collective threats that can be framed as causes of action. The key to our success will be to group victims based on these common experiences of harm, which are repeatedly identified across numerous major industries.
The most potent and widespread collective threat is that of exploitative and excessive pricing stemming from an abuse of a dominant market position. This is a statutory tort under competition law, and it provides a powerful basis for our claims. The element of commonality here is clear and compelling: every member of the proposed class has been overcharged for a product or service due to a defendant’s anti-competitive practices. The harm is the financial loss suffered on each transaction. We see this pattern in multiple ongoing claims. The action against Valve Corporation, for instance, alleges that millions of UK gamers were forced to pay inflated prices for games and content due to Valve’s excessive commission and price parity clauses which prevent publishers from offering lower prices on competing platforms. A similar common harm is alleged in the claims against Apple, where the mandatory 30% commission is said to lead directly to higher prices for consumers. The claim against BT, though initially dismissed, was founded on the same principle: that a class of vulnerable, landline-only customers was subjected to excessive pricing. This threat extends beyond digital markets, as seen in the pharmaceutical cases concerning hydrocortisone and phenytoin sodium, where the core allegation was price “gouging” that caused common harm to the NHS, and by extension, all taxpayers.
A second, more modern collective threat revolves around the exploitation of consumer data as an unlawful condition of service. The commonality here lies in the shared experience of an entire user base being subjected to the same set of non-negotiable terms, creating what the claim against Meta frames as an ‘unfair bargain’. The allegation is that Meta abused its dominance by forcing users to surrender vast quantities of personal data to access its social network. Every user who agreed to these terms shares this common experience of entering into an allegedly exploitative, non-monetary transaction. This represents a powerful fusion of competition, consumer, and data protection law, where the harm is the loss of personal data and privacy imposed on a class-wide basis.
Third, we can identify a collective threat based on market foreclosure and the restriction of choice, which harms both businesses and consumers. Here, the element of commonality is the shared disadvantage imposed by a dominant platform’s self-preferencing or restrictive rules. The proposed action against Amazon alleges a range of such abuses on its marketplace, including the misuse of seller data and preferencing its own products and logistics services. The common harm is felt by all independent sellers on the platform who are disadvantaged by these practices. This in turn creates a secondary common harm for consumers, who face limited choice and potentially higher prices. We see the same pattern in the new investigation against Education Software Solutions, where the company is allegedly preventing a whole class of customers—schools—from switching to competing providers. This creates a common state of “lock-in” for the entire class, restricting their choice and exposing them to potential overcharging.
Fourth, there is a clear collective threat arising from regulatory failure and hidden costs being passed on to consumers. The attempted collective action against the English water companies provides a perfect template for this cause of action. The core allegation was that the companies systematically under-reported pollution incidents to their regulator, leading to lower penalties and allowing them to charge a whole class of customers higher prices than would otherwise have been permitted. Although that specific claim was barred by a technical provision in the Water Industry Act, the CAT explicitly noted it would otherwise have been certified. The commonality is that every single bill-payer within the service area was overcharged as a direct result of the same alleged deception. This demonstrates a viable model for a tort claim where an entire customer base suffers a common financial harm due to a company misleading its regulator.
Finally, the documents highlight a more subtle but crucial collective threat that we must address in our own actions: the procedural and agency risks inherent in claimant-free litigation. The class members we represent are not before the court and are reliant on the class representative to act in their best interests. The documents note the principal-agent problem, where the interests of the representative may diverge from those of the class, and the risk of conflicts within the class itself. All class members are collectively exposed to the risk of a settlement that is not just and reasonable, or a legal strategy that does not maximise their recovery. While this is not a cause of action against the defendant, it is a common threat to the class that COCOO, in its role, is perfectly positioned to mitigate. Our robust governance and public interest mission will be a key strength, ensuring the collective actions we bring genuinely serve the common interests of the members we seek to protect.
In all these instances, the path forward is clear. We will identify a common practice by a defendant that imposes a shared harm—be it a financial overcharge, a loss of data, or a restriction of choice—on a definable group of people. This shared experience is the commonality that forms the legal and practical foundation of a collective action in both tort and contract law.
Of course. I have broken down my analysis of each document to explain precisely what I extracted and, more importantly, why that information is fundamental to advancing our cases, our public campaigns, and any potential mediation projects.
Beginning with the report titled ‘Ongoing UK Competition Claims’ (FOCOLS.pdf), I extracted a detailed map of the current competition litigation landscape. This document is effectively our strategic intelligence. From it, I pulled a veritable catalogue of existing high-profile collective action claims, identifying the major corporate defendants such as Valve, Google, Meta, and Amazon, as well as the specific legal theories being used against them. The crucial extraction was the recurring patterns of alleged harm—specifically, abuse of dominance leading to excessive pricing, the enforcement of restrictive terms like price parity clauses, exploitative use of consumer data, and self-preferencing on digital platforms. I extracted these details because they provide us with proven templates for causes of action. We can see which arguments are considered viable enough to be brought before the Competition Appeal Tribunal, which saves us from reinventing the wheel. This information directly fuels our case selection, allowing us to build claims against these or other companies based on established models of wrongdoing. For our campaign, the names of these globally recognised companies are invaluable. They are not abstract legal targets but household names, which makes our public messaging far more powerful and relatable. Highlighting these ongoing battles allows us to frame our own investigations as part of a wider fight for consumer justice. For mediation, this intelligence is equally critical; knowing a company is already embroiled in costly litigation on one front helps us assess their appetite for settling another dispute we might bring to them.
Next, from the more technical paper on the mechanics of collective actions, ‘THE IMPLICATIONS OF “CLAIMANT-FREE” ACTIONS’ (CAT FOCOL HOW2.pdf), I extracted the procedural playbook and a risk assessment. This document moves us from the ‘what’ to the ‘how’. My key extractions were the detailed explanations of the principal-agent problem, the potential for conflicts of interest within a claimant class, and the critical supervisory role the Tribunal plays in approving settlements to ensure they are ‘just and reasonable’. I focused on these elements because they highlight the inherent vulnerabilities in the collective action regime—vulnerabilities that COCOO is uniquely positioned to overcome. Understanding these procedural challenges allows us to structure our own collective actions in a way that is robust and prioritises the interests of the class above all else. This knowledge is a direct competitive advantage against more commercially-minded litigants and will be central to persuading the Tribunal that COCOO is the most suitable class representative in any carriage dispute. For our campaign, this information is a powerful differentiator. We can publicly commit to a higher standard of governance and transparency, promising to avoid the pitfalls described in this paper. This builds trust and will be a compelling reason for victims to join our actions. For mediation projects, understanding the intense scrutiny the Tribunal applies to settlements is vital. It means any resolution we broker must be demonstrably fair to the entire class, a standard we can champion from the outset.
Finally, from our own internal strategy document, ‘COCOO’S 9 TECHS.txt’, I extracted our own mission statement and operational DNA. The most important information here was not about external targets, but about ourselves: our stated goal of acting as a public and consumer interest champion, our methodological approach to identifying causes of action, and, crucially, the clear articulation of the regulatory risks we face from bodies like the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). I extracted this because it serves as our constitutional and compliance framework. It ensures that the cases we select, inspired by the first document, and the procedures we follow, guided by the second, are always aligned with our core public-interest mission. It also serves as a critical legal and ethical safeguard. As your solicitor, my primary concern is ensuring our own legitimacy. By extracting and constantly referring to our own internal rules and the external regulations that govern us, I can ensure that COCOO’s operations are unassailable. This is paramount because our credibility is our greatest asset. For our campaigns and any mediation, being able to state that we operate with the highest degree of regulatory compliance gives us the moral authority to challenge the conduct of others. It is the foundation upon which all our other work is built.
GEMINI STRATEGY
Our investigation and the rapidly evolving political and legal landscape confirm that the grounds for significant legal action against the Home Office and, to a lesser extent, HM Treasury and the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) are not only robust but are strengthening. Recent official reports have substantiated our core allegations of profound financial mismanagement, systemic inefficiency, and a failure to adhere to fundamental legal duties. The cancellation of the Rwanda scheme by the new government allows us to pivot from challenging its legality to focusing on recovering the immense and wasted taxpayer funds.
Our strategy must now be to meticulously translate these systemic failures into specific, actionable legal claims. We will pursue these claims based on the harms caused to distinct groups: the UK taxpayer, the public interest, vulnerable asylum seekers, and the integrity of the market for government services. We will progress this by preparing detailed pre-action correspondence with the relevant government departments, laying the groundwork for potential judicial review and civil claims.
Identifying Causes of Action in Tort
The government’s conduct gives rise to several potential claims in tort, which is the law of civil wrongs. These actions would focus on the tangible harm caused by the state’s failures.
Our primary cause of action is likely to be in the tort of negligence. We will argue that the Home Office owes a direct duty of care to the UK taxpayer to manage public funds prudently and efficiently. The evidence for a breach of this duty is now overwhelming. The recent National Audit Office report from May 2025 provides a devastating assessment, showing that asylum accommodation contracts, initially costed at £4.5 billion, are now projected to cost £15.3 billion. The fact that, in the last year, hotels accounted for 76% of the annual cost while housing only 35% of asylum seekers is a stark indicator of an unreasonable and inefficient system. This is not a reasonable exercise of discretion; it is a failure to manage. We will argue that no reasonable government department, acting with ordinary prudence, would preside over such a financial catastrophe. The harm is the quantifiable loss of billions of pounds to the public purse which could have been used for other essential public services.
Secondly, we have a strong claim for breach of statutory duty. This is a distinct tort where a duty is imposed by an Act of Parliament. The most egregious example relates to the treatment of Unaccompanied Asylum-Seeking Children (UASC). The High Court has already ruled that housing these children in hotels was unlawful, being a clear breach of the duties owed under the Children Act 1989 and the requirement under Section 55 of the Borders, Citizenship and Immigration Act 2009 to treat the child’s best interests as a primary consideration. While the government has ceased this specific practice, we can pursue damages for the children who were unlawfully placed in such accommodation, arguing that this failure of care caused them tangible harm. Furthermore, the systemic and prolonged delays in processing asylum claims represent a breach of the Home Office’s duty under its own Immigration Rules to process claims “as soon as possible”. The creation of a new, 42,000-strong appeals backlog shows this failure is ongoing. The harm here is not just financial; it is the severe mental anguish and uncertainty inflicted upon individuals left in limbo for years.
Finally, we must consider the tort of misfeasance in public office. This is a more challenging claim as it requires us to show not just incompetence but that a public official knowingly acted unlawfully. The pursuit of the Rwanda policy, even after the Supreme Court had ruled the country unsafe, and the decision to spend hundreds of millions of pounds on a scheme that never became operational, could potentially fall into this category. We would need to demonstrate that officials proceeded with the expenditure knowing it was for an improper purpose or with reckless indifference to the legality and value for money of the scheme.
Expanding on Contractual Liabilities
The government does not operate in a vacuum; it delivers services through private contractors. Our analysis of the National Audit Office report from May 2025 reveals serious failings in the management of these contracts, opening avenues to challenge the contractual arrangements and the value delivered.
The report’s finding that contractors have faced minimal financial penalties – only £4 million deducted on contracts worth billions, despite significant underperformance – points to a potential breach of the government’s duty to secure value for money. As a public interest organisation, we can challenge the lawfulness of the government’s failure to enforce its own contracts. A judicial review could be sought to compel the Home Office to properly performance-manage these contracts and claw back funds for failures to meet standards.
Furthermore, we can explore claims based on unjust enrichment. Where private contractors have profited excessively from a system characterised by inefficiency and human misery – with the NAO report noting that hotel accommodation may be more profitable than other forms – it can be argued that they have been unjustly enriched at the taxpayer’s expense. This enrichment flows directly from the Home Office’s failure to create a functional system and its reliance on high-cost, last-minute solutions.
We will also investigate the possibility of competition violations. The long-term, high-value nature of these accommodation contracts, potentially awarded without sufficient competitive tendering due to the ‘emergency’ situation created by the Home Office’s own processing delays, could be challenged. We will scrutinise the procurement process for any evidence of anti-competitive practices or the creation of a closed market that benefits a small number of large providers at the expense of taxpayers and potentially smaller, more cost-effective operators.
Violations of Public Interest, Consumer, and Investor Rights
The concept of the taxpayer as a consumer of government services is central to our public interest standing. The services purchased with billions in public funds – a fair, efficient, and humane asylum system – have demonstrably not been delivered. This represents a profound failure of consumer rights on a national scale. The public interest is harmed not only by the financial waste but also by the erosion of confidence in public administration and the damage to the UK’s international reputation. Our legal actions will be framed as upholding this public interest.
For investors, the situation creates significant risks. Companies holding these large-scale government contracts are exposed to reputational damage and potential legal challenges. The NAO’s finding that reported profit margins may differ from those in company accounts, and that performance data is not robustly audited, raises serious questions about corporate governance and transparency. As a representative body, we can highlight these risks to the investor community, arguing that the current system fosters a high-risk environment for capital. We can challenge the companies directly on their duty to provide accurate information to the market and their investors regarding their performance and the sustainability of their profits, which appear to be predicated on government failure.
Our next steps will be to formalise these arguments in detailed correspondence, putting the Home Office, HM Treasury, and the specific contractors on notice of the potential claims. We will demand full disclosure of the data and analyses underpinning their decisions, particularly regarding accommodation costs and contractor performance. The evidence of systemic failure is clear and compelling; our task now is to ensure accountability and seek redress for the significant harm caused.