Lawyers in British Airways data breach compensation case lose £1m fee claim

I recently looked at the pros and cons of joining the heavily advertised Group Litigation Order currently working through the courts in respect of the 2018 British Airways data breach.

A group of legal firms is bringing the first US-style class action lawsuit of its kind in the UK. If you sign up and were impacted by the British Airways data breach in 2018, you could receive a payment.

A court hearing was held last week to discuss what costs should be born by BA if it loses.

PGMBM, one of the law firms involved, believed that – if it wins the case – British Airways should pay for the £1m advertising campaign that PGMBM has been running to find claimants.

PGMBM claimed that it had spend £443,000 on advertising so far and intended to spend another £557,000 before the case was heard.

At the High Court on 2nd February, Mr Justice Saini told PGMBM to take a hike.

He made it clear that PGMBM’s advertising costs would not be recoverable from British Airways if the airline loses the case. They must be met from the cut of the proceeds paid to the lawyers by the claimants.

You can read more in the Law Society Gazette here.

PS. If you read the full judgement, you will see that only 23,000 people have so far joined the action despite advertising spend of £443,000. Head for Points could have generated a large percentage of this on its own! The advertising budget has not been well spent so far.

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