British Airways faces mass legal action after Mr Justice Warby grants group litigation order

October 7, 2019

Half a million British Airways (BA) customers have been given the go ahead to bring compensation claims against the airline at the High Court over a data breach.

BA is already facing a potential £183 million penalty by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

The airline reported that it had suffered a cyber-attack on its systems in September 2018.

The ICO were forced to investigate and found that 500,000 customers had been affected.

Personal details, including payment data and addresses, were compromised by the hack, according to the ICO’s findings.

British Airways began to contact affected customers last year but on Friday 4 October 2019 Mr Justice Warby granted a group litigation order at a hearing in London, paving the way for a mass legal action against BA.   The judge granted a window of 15 months for people to come forward and join the group litigation.

Louis Browne QC and Ian Whitehurst from Exchange Chambers have been instructed by Hayes Connor Solicitors to advise on the BA data breach group litigation and at present have a total of in excess of 500 clients.

In addition to BA, Exchange Chambers’ Data Breach and Privacy practice is instructed in a range of high-profile matters including advising on group, representative and multi party actions, privacy and reputation management cases and substantial individual data breach cases affecting the human rights of numerous individuals.

The case received national press coverage:

https://www.express.co.uk/travel/articles/1186875/British-Airways-flights-passenger-data-breach-news-uk-latest

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7539707/Half-million-British-Airways-customers-told-sue-airline-data-breach.html

https://lbndaily.co.uk/liverpool-lawyers-join-multi-million-pound-ba-data-breach-battle/