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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.

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Ever since the Information Commissioner issued British Airways with a notice proposing to impose a massive fine of £183.39m for a data breach incident in 2018, we have all be waiting with bated breath to see how that process would conclude. A fine at that level would have been the largest ever issued by a data protection regulator in Europe, and would have dwarfed the eye-watering €50m proposed by the French data protection authority CNIL in respect of Google’s advertisement personalisation practices, affecting millions of French citizens. The prospect of BA, a corporate victim of a criminal cyber-attack affecting around 400,000 people’s (mostly payment-card) data, being subject to fine in excess of 4x as large certainly grabbed the headlines. Continue reading →

The free expression right conferred by Article 10 ECHR encompasses a right “to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority”. Does this create a right to request information from a public authority, such that a refusal to disclose would constitute an interference with Article 10? Continue reading →