Jonathan Kirk KC

Practice Areas

Consumer Law: He writes the main consumer law textbook and has been instructed to defend businesses in virtually all of the CMA’s sectoral investigations into consumer law infringements. He represented the successful parking company in the Supreme Court case of Beavis v ParkingEye, which provides the current test for unfair terms and penalties. Over the last 25 years he has represented parties in many of the important UK trading standards and product safety cases.

Consumer Finance: He writes the main textbook on mis-selling financial services and routinely defends businesses from a variety of sectors facing group litigation involving consumer credit and mis-selling. He has been involved in numerous judicial reviews involving FOS. He is involved in the defence of lenders in the mis-selling litigation over solar panels, diesel emissions, business lease cars, motor finance (hidden commission), PPI and timeshare.

Food: He has defended most supermarkets and many other retailers in relation to food law issues. He appeared in the Supreme Court on food labelling and EU regulation. He has particular expertise in food safety, animal feed, health and nutrition claims, novel foods and CBD regulation.

Publications

-Principal editor of Consumer and Trading Standards: Law and Practice (‘the Pink Book’), published by Lexis Nexis (11th Edition, 2023)

-Co-author of Kirk, Samuels and Finch on Mis-selling Financial Services (Edward Elgar, 2nd Edition 2022)

-Co-author of Kirk & Finch on Consumer Group Litigation (Edward Elgar, publication date Dec 2023)

-General editor of Kirk and Kingham, the Encyclopaedia of Financial Services, published by Thomson Reuters