The UK’s largest press regulator has today launched a compulsory version of its low-cost arbitration scheme, giving an alternative to court action for victims of press abuse at the seven best-selling national daily newspapers.

The Independent Press Standards Organisation first announced the plan in May, moving closer towards recommendations made in the Leveson Inquiry report for an affordable arbitration scheme for people who want to make genuine complaints against the press.

The scheme will mean any of the 16 newspapers signed up will have no choice but to go through arbitration when anyone with a “valid legal claim” against them takes their case to IPSO and pays a maximum fee of £100.