Suppose I run a website in the US. I only have staff and offices there, and my target audience is America. Sometimes punters in the UK read my stuff and even buy the odd thing from my website, but not that much, and I don’t really care if they do or not. Is the territorial reach of the GDPR – and/or UKGDPR – wide enough to get me, and thereby expose me to risks of the ICO or civil claimants going after me in the UK? Continue reading →

This week’s decision of the First-Tier Tribunal’s decision in True Vision Productions v IC (EA/2019/0170) is probably one of the last to deal with enforcement action under the old DPA 1998, but it is one of the first that deals with the journalism exemption (section 32 of the DPA 1998, reincarnated in substantially the same form in paragraph 26 of Schedule 2 to the DPA 2018). The exemption saved the controller – the production company, TVP – from part, but not all of its difficulties. TVP did enough, however, to persuade the Tribunal to slash the ICO’s £120k monetary penalty notice to £20k. Continue reading →

The recent decision of the High Court (Richard Spearman QC, sitting as a Judge of the Queen’s Bench Division) in David Neil Gerrard and Elizabeth Ann Gerrard v Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation Limited and Diligence International LLC [2020] EWHC 3241 (QB), relates to one aspect of the complex litigation between Mr. Gerrard (currently a partner at Dechert LLP, a law firm) and ENRC (his former client).   The decision deals with various interlocutory applications in a claim that is itself ancillary to the main proceedings.  Nevertheless, even though it relates to a skirmish in a much more extensive battle, the decision is of considerable interest in its own right, in particular as to the use of covert surveillance in the context of litigation.

Mr. Gerrard was ENRC’s solicitor between December 2010 and March 2013, acting for ENRC in relation to a SFO investigation.  In 2017, ENRC brought proceedings against Mr. Gerrard in the Commercial Court alleging that Mr. Gerrard had acted negligently and in breach of fiduciary duty by seeking to extend the scope of the SFO’s investigation into ENRC, and by leaking information about ENRC to the media and the SFO.  In 2019, ENRC brought further proceedings in the Chancery Division against the Director of the SFO, for (among other matters) inducing Dechert LLP and/or Mr. Gerrard to breach their fiduciary duty to ENRC. Continue reading →

The Ministry of Justice has published consultation proposals for reforms to how cases progress from the Upper Tribunal to the Court of Appeal. The consultation paper can be found here. Although apparently driven by cases from the Immigration and Asylum Chamber, the proposals will apply to all Chambers of the Upper Tribunal and so will, of course, encompass information rights cases in the Administrative Appeals Chamber. Continue reading →

The Court of Appeal has today granted permission to appeal in the case of Newman v Southampton CC (now M(a child)), which concerns the important question of the extent to which journalists can gain access to court records in private family law proceedings. The case is discussed in more detail in Michael White’s post, which you can find here. Continue reading →

I understand that Travel Counsellors is appealing the finding in HHJ Hacon’s judgment in Trailfinders v Travel Counsellors & Ors [2020] EWHC 591 (IPEC) that it was liable for breach of confidence because it received customer information from the Trailfinders’ employees it recruited which it ought to have known was fairly and reasonably to be regarded as confidential to Trailfinders.

Continue reading →