A group of lenders won a partial reprieve in a pivotal UK car finance case, after the country’s top court sought to rein in the spiraling saga that’s set to cost banks billions in consumer payouts.

Britain's highest court Friday largely overturned a lower court's ruling that certain car finance agreements were unlawful, a decision likely to bring a sigh of relief among lenders and limit the scale of compensation payments.

The Supreme Court has given a boost to banks, their investors and the government by throwing out large parts of last year’s landmark car finance ruling that threatened to unleash a multibillion-pound surge of compensation claims.