Big trials where they potnetially law changing and have huge consequences if the weak side wins I suspect are manipulated, and quite possible pressure put on the people who decide the verdict, but of course its unproven.
eg. a few years back was a trial in the UK which was to try and rule 'unauthorised' overdraft charges illegal in particular bounced payment fees illegal. I personally felt the case was handled badly by the people seeking the charge but on top of that I would be very surprised if no pressure was put on the judges.
The banks won the case, if they had lost we would have not only seen them having to refund billions of pounds (mostly to poor people, welfare claimants etc.) but also a complete change in how banking was done in the uk.
Ironically the changes made after the case were supposed to improve things but in my view are worse. Previously people got a flat fee whenever a direct debit or standing order bounced or id the bank allowed a payment to clear that took them over their overdraft limit, however there was no fees for payments within overdraft limits.
Now the fees for going over overdraft limits are largely reduced but people using pre authorised overdrafts now have to pay fees when previously they didnt. (this is on top of interest).
We also very recently just a week ago had a case brought up where 2 people took on the government about the workfare programmes going on (making people do full time work for their benefit payments and the companies involved dont have to pay any wages), they couldnt get a guilty verdict on the human rights issue which would have most defently been a law changer but only a minor vistory on how the workfare was administered, even with that victory tho the government now owes many people money for wrongfully sanctioning them and has vowed not to pay them back (against the court ruling). A complete disrespect to the law.
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