The FCA deserves credit for one thing. In defending its motor finance redress scheme, it rejected lenders’ attempts to decide for themselves who should receive compensation, memorably telling the Upper Tribunal that doing so would amount to letting “the foxes guard the henhouse.”

Quite right.

Banks should not write the rules governing their own liability.

But neither should Britain’s rapidly expanding litigation industry.

If lenders have an obvious commercial interest in limiting compensation, claims management companies, litigation funders and claimant law firms have an equally obvious commercial interest in maximising it. Both profit from the outcome. Neither is a neutral guardian of the public interest.

That is why compensation schemes should be designed by independent regulators and tested by the courts—not by whichever lobby stands to make the most money.

The real danger is that the motor finance scandal degenerates into a tug-of-war between two sets of commercial interests. On one side, lenders seeking to narrow liability. On the other, an increasingly sophisticated claims industry seeking to widen it.

Consumers deserve better than becoming the prize in someone else’s commercial dispute.

The FCA’s central objective remains the right one – deliver compensation quickly, consistently and directly. The longer competing interests fight over the mechanics, the longer millions of motorists wait for redress.

No one should be guarding the henhouse.

Not the banks.

And not the litigation industry either.