A recent ruling by the High Court in London will mean that unsuccessful claimants in the well-publicised Municipio De Mariana & Ors v BHP Group PLC & Anor group action claim will need to make an interim payment of £8m to cover 50% of their opponents legal costs.
In making the ruling, High Court judge Mr Justice Turner said that it was wrong to penalise the defendants for the work done on the case. Justice Turner had already struck out group litigation on behalf of some 202,600 Brazilians last November who were claiming compensation following the collapse of the Fundao dam in Brazil in 2015, saying the task of managing such a case would be ‘irredeemably unmanageable’ if it was allowed to proceed.
Advantage Litigation News & Updates
From time to time we will post news articles and announcements relating to the firm and to various legal issues that may be of interest to you.
An important decision has recently been in the UK’s Volkswagen group litigation claim that is good news for the 91,000 claimants who are seeking compensation from the German motor manufacturer.
...GDPR’s European-wide introduction in May 2018, combined with an increasing awareness of data privacy issues amongst businesses and individuals is likely to result in an increase in data privacy related class action (also known as group action) claims and litigation in the UK.
Now that GDPR – the new, European-wide General Data Protection Regulation – has come into effect from 25th May 2018, observers in the UK legal profession are anticipating an increase in data protection based legal actions, with group / class actions being increasingly likely. Group actions, whereby a group or collective of claimants come together and are represented legally by a member of that group (usually a lawyer, solicitor or law fim), aren’t particularly common in the UK but changes to the Civil Procedure Rules (‘CPR’) back in 1999do allow such actions.
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New Tests are Coming for Professional Negligence Claims
Following recent Supreme Court rulings in two professional negligence cases, the Court has outlined a “wholly new legal roadmap” for professional negligence claims made in England and Wales. As a result, the Professional Negligence Lawyers Association (PNLA) have said that existing claims will now need to be reviewed, stating that “for many there could be a substantial impact on the likely chances of success and the assessment of financial loss”.The cases in question are Khan v Meadows [2021] and Manchester Building Society v Grant Thornton UK LLP [2021]. The first case centred on whether a medical expert, who failed to diagnose that a mother carried the haemophilia gene, was liable for the costs associated with her son’s autism as well as his haemophilia, whilst the second case concerned whether accountants Grant Thornton were liable for the costs of a building society... Read More
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Failed Business Claims Highlights Risks of Not Having Professional Representation
A recently failed business claim that was dismissed at court has once again highlighted the many pitfalls and legal complexities facing litigants in person (LIPs – that is, individuals taking legal action without professional representation from a solicitor or barrister). The claim in question - Daly & Anr v Ryan & Anr. 2021 - concerned an individual businessman who had a costly judgment entered against him simply because he had repeatedly failed to abide by the rules. Read More
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Law Firms look to New Ways of Working as Numbers Shrink
Latest statistics from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), who are responsible for the regulation of solicitors and law firms in England and Wales, confirm what many in the profession have been predicting for a while; that law firms are accelerating the consolidation process as they begin to embrace new ways of working. Read More