On 30 June 2026, Mr Justice Trower gave judgment after a joint case management conference in the shareholder claims against Entain plc (Various Claimants v Entain PLC [2026] EWHC 1622 (KB)). This was an important decision in relation to case sequencing for securities claims in England and Wales.
Background: the £1.6 billion shareholder claims against Entain
The underlying litigation concerns claims against Entain totalling over £1.6 billion. These are brought by two groups of shareholder claimants under sections 90 and 90A of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (“FSMA”).
The claims arise from allegations that Entain engaged in historical misconduct in respect of its Turkish business, including a failure to prevent the payment of bribes. Further, the claimants allege that published information and prospectuses contained misleading statements and/or omitted to disclose relevant information relating to the bribery, and that this was known to a number of people discharging managerial responsibilities (“PDMRs”). The claims are significant in size, and one claimant group’s pleading identifies 178 allegedly misleading statements in 29 pieces of published information, including four prospectuses, over a twelve-year period.
It was common ground that each claimant must prove five things under section 90A:
- Standing.
- An untrue or misleading statement, an omission or a delay in published information covered by Schedule 10A of FSMA.
- PDMR knowledge, recklessness or dishonesty.
- Reasonable reliance, for claims based on misstatements or omissions.
- Causation and loss.
Case Management
Several important points were agreed between the parties in this instance. As related criminal proceedings are ongoing against individuals, the parties accepted that trial could not safely begin before May 2029. They also agreed that sample claimants would advance the claimant-side issues of reliance, causation, limitation and loss.
Although the starting point is that all issues should be dealt with at a single trial, English courts have found that splitting issues between two separate trials (Trial One and Trial Two) can be appropriate in securities litigation cases. However, the nature of that split, and which issue should be determined in which trial, has varied between cases, and the parties could not agree in this instance.
In Entain, everyone accepted that there would be two trials, and that quantification of loss would be decided at Trial Two. It was also agreed that Trial One would decide standing and the "defendant-side" issues. These were Entain's conduct, PDMR knowledge, and whether there was fraud or concealment by Entain for the purposes of section 32(1)(b) of the Limitation Act 1980.
However, there was a dispute about when reliance, causation and limitation should be heard. Entain argued that Trial One should decide all of them, because reliance and causation are essential elements of liability and limitation can bar a claim entirely. In Entain's view, quantum was the only genuinely different issue. The claimants wanted those issues deferred to Trial Two.
The High Court’s decision
Trower J sided with the claimants and ordered that Trial One decide the common, issuer-side questions:
- whether there were actionable misstatements, omissions or delay;
- PDMR knowledge;
-
fraud and concealment for limitation purposes; and
- standing, apart from the duration of the aftermarket.
Trial Two will decide reliance, causation, loss, and limitation.
However, the judge’s overall reasoning and analysis are instructive. Trower J noted that it was not accurate to describe a split, or the deferral of reliance, as the “orthodox” position in section 90A claims. There “will always be a wide range of considerations for the court in determining how to proceed" with split trials. These include costs, efficiency, the likely best approach for achieving settlement and the litigation burden. Not every securities litigation case has reached the same conclusion on how to split the trials, and “it is important to emphasise that the right answer in each case will be dictated by its own facts and circumstances.”
After surveying other similar case management decisions, Trower J noted that the comparable cases had all been settled or not yet reached trial, so the court has little experience of how this form of case management has worked in practice.
The judge noted that cases should be managed so that “a great deal of time and money is not wasted in adducing evidence on permutations based on what turns out to be the wrong counterfactual”. That risk is reduced if the court first decides what the misstatements and omissions were, when PDMRs knew of them and when they occurred. The judge also agreed with Michael Green J in Standard Chartered that “causation does really naturally go with quantum”. He found a "continuum" in the impact on the claimants of what occurred, which is not marked by a bright line. What a claimant did in reliance on a statement is closely linked to what it would have done in the counterfactual. The same witnesses and documents are therefore likely to cover reliance, causation and quantum. That made the claimants’ proposal the more natural and cleaner split, and the questions of costs, practicality and efficient preparation all pointed in the direction of that split. However, he placed no material weight on either side’s trial-length estimates because they were speculative at this stage.
The decision also took account of the need to balance work and costs, to ensure that the whole “litigation burden” was not loaded onto Entain early in the proceedings, and to have more work done on Trial Two issues before Trial One. The judge ordered all sample claimants to give disclosure before Trial One on reliance and on every other Trial Two issue. The only exception was disclosure about alternative investments the claimants would have made. However, he did not order sample claimants to serve witness statements on reliance, causation, limitation and loss before Trial One. Doing so would have undermined the cost controls that justify the split.
Conclusion
English courts will take a pragmatic approach to the appropriate trial split in securities litigation claims. Judges will make decisions based on the circumstances of the particular case and in the light of a range of factors such as efficiency, costs and concerns over the fairness of the litigation burden. For instance, in Tesco, a split was ordered which left only quantification of loss to a second trial, while in Standard Chartered, individual reliance, causation, limitation and quantum were all to be determined in a second trial. Each case is decided on its facts, and recent decisions do not all point the same way. However, the judge was also clear that claimants cannot assume that certain issues will always be hived off to a second trial. Claimants who “choose to bring civil claims … should only do so if they are ready, willing and able to make good the cause or causes of action which they plead”.
