Group Litigation instructions for Louis Browne QC and Gareth Shires

June 10, 2020

With group litigation on the rise, Louis Browne QC and Gareth Shires from Exchange Chambers are acting in a range of high-profile cases.

The silk and junior are instructed in a group action against Ticketmaster after the company’s website was hacked, resulting in a significant data breach. The data breach compromised customer names, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, payment details and login details, affecting up to 40,000 people who bought tickets between September 2017 and 23 June 2018.

Louis Browne QC and Gareth Shires are also instructed to seek a Group Litigation Order on behalf of victims of the Equifax data hack, which was initiated after the company was fined a six-figure sum by the Information Commissioner’s Office. The ICO ruled Equifax’s UK branch had “failed to take appropriate steps” to protect UK citizens’ data. It added that “multiple failures” meant personal information had been kept longer than necessary and left vulnerable. Originally, Equifax reported that fewer than 400,000 Britons had had sensitive data exposed in the breach – but it later revealed that the number was at least 15 million.

Barristers from Exchange Chambers have also secured a number of recent group litigation successes in the courts. Last month the High Court ruled that Volkswagen breached European emissions rules by installing unlawful “defeat devices” in diesel cars. In an important ruling for UK motorists in their class action against Volkswagen, Mr Justice Waksman also found that the High Court is bound by the German transport regulator’s finding that the software installed was a defeat device. Gareth Shires from Exchange Chambers is instructed on all aspects of the litigation.