Background

Mr Matthew McConville, the Head of our specialised Data Breach Department at Irvings Law has successfully represented a client in a data breach compensation claim against Virgin Media. The identity of the Mr McConville’s client will be named as ‘Miss A’ for the purposes of this blog.

• Miss A applied for a full-time position with Virgin Media. The information supplied by Miss A to Virgin Media in connection with the Job Application (including the fact of Miss A having made the Job Application) was so done on a confidential basis so that none of it was to be shared with any person without the express consent of Miss A.
• Subsequently, Miss A attended an interview for a full-time position with Virgin Media and during the course of the same, it transpired that Virgin Media had disclosed on social media the fact of Miss A’s Job Application which caused adverse employment consequences with Miss A’s existing employer.

Representation

Unhappy with this, Miss A approached Irvings Law for specialist advice and without hesitation no win, no fee terms were offered. Once instructed, Irvings Law lodged a formal Letter of Claim to Virgin Media as clearly, they disclosed information pertaining to Miss A without consent and online which had adverse consequences with Miss A’s existing employer. Irvings Law alleged that Virgin Media had breached / invaded Miss A’s privacy under the Human Rights Act, had breached the Data Protection Act 2018/the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as well as confidence following their misuse of private information pertaining to Miss A.

In response to this, Virgin Media robustly denied liability and Mr McConville took over Miss A’s claim. When this happened, Virgin Media wished to engage in settlement discussions but the proposals they made to Miss A were derisory. As such, Mr McConville advised Miss A that her only option was to issue and serve High Court proceedings which she duly instructed Mr McConville to do.

Resolution

Once High Court proceedings were issued and served, Virgin Media finally saw sense and admitted the claims brought by Miss A. After this, further settlement discussions were had between Mr McConville and Virgin Media which culminated in settlement being achieved for Miss A in the sum of £9,000.00 plus legal costs.