Ruth Bala

Practice Areas

Ruth has built up a specialist practice in regulated lending, retail banking and financial services. Ruth has represented banks and finance institutions in a number of the leading cases in the area. She was lead counsel for the creditor in Kerrigan & 11 ors v Elevate Credit International Limited (t/a Sunny) (in administration) [2020] EWHC 2169 (Comm), the payday lending test case litigation on the relationship between the FCA’s Handbook rules and the ‘unfair relationship’ provisions. She also mounted a successful defence of undisclosed PPI commission in the seminal case of Harrison v Black Horse Ltd [2011] Lloyd’s Rep I.R. 455, subsequently overruled by the Supreme Court in Plevin v Paragon Personal Finance Limited [2014] 1 W.L.R. 4222, and appeared in Conlon v Black Horse Ltd [2012] GCCR 11423 (settled three days before the hearing in the Supreme Court). Ruth gives corporate entities in-depth advice on debt portfolio acquisitions and financial regulatory compliance. She is an expert on the detailed rules governing regulated activities in the FCA Handbook, including the CONC, MCOB, ICOBS and DISP modules.