A Court of Appeal judge has suggested the Law Commission reviews consumer law after dismissing an appeal by a lottery player whose £1m win turned out to be a computer glitch
Parker-Grennan v Camelot UK Lotteries Ltd [2024] EWCA Civ 185 concerned an instant win game on the National Lottery website. She clicked ‘confirm’ to agree to the terms and conditions—a link at the bottom of the page led to the small print with hyperlinks to other terms—and played the game. The animations appeared to show she had won £1m—she quickly took a screenshot and rang Camelot without clicking ‘Finish’. Camelot told her she must click ‘Finish’ to complete the game. Sadly, when she did so, the screen showed she had only won £10.
The mistake was due to a coding issue, which generated an error in the Java software.
Joan Parker-Grennan sued for £1m, contending she followed the rules and any software error was Camelot’s problem, not hers. The High Court held for Camelot. The claimant’s appeal raised three issues: (i) Were Camelot’s terms incorporated in the contract? (ii) If so, were certain of those terms rendered unenforceable by the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999? (iii) And as a matter of construction, did she win £1m or £10?
Giving the main judgment, Lady Justice Andrews held the claimant won £10 only, the terms were effectively incorporated, and none were onerous, unusual or unfair.
However, Andrews LJ said the case ‘squarely raised the issue of what needs to be done to incorporate standard terms and conditions into a contract for goods or services which is made online’.
‘So far as we are aware,’ she said, ‘this is the first case in which that issue has been considered by this court.’
She concluded: ‘The issues in this case have highlighted the complexity of balancing the needs of traders to publicise their terms and conditions with the needs of consumers to access and understand those terms. Given that a decade has passed since the last report of the Law Commission the time might be ripe for another, evidence-based, review of this area of law.’
