UK Court of Appeal Approves Therium’s £3B Opt-Out Class Action Against Google

A UK Court of Appeal has approved the enormous U.S.-style class action against Google in the now infamous ‘Safari workaround’ claim. 4 million claimants will be represented in an opt-out action brought by Mishcon de Reya and backed by Therium Capital Management.

As reported in Law Gazette, the underlying claim alleges Google used software to bypass privacy settings and illegally spy on iPhone users from August 2011 to February 2012. The Court of Appeal found that an iPhone user’s data amounts to a financial asset, and therefore any loss of control over one’s data amounts to an invasion of privacy. As such, the class will be awarded the same amount per-claimant, without needing to show any financial hardship.

Consumer rights advocate Richard Lloyd who helped bring this claim forward, is seeking £750 per claimant, which would amount to over £3B in total payout. However, the court suggested that damages will be assessed according to the lowest common denominator of damages within the claimant group, which means the final payout could be much lower.

For its part, Google intends to appeal the Court of Appeal’s decision up to the Supreme Court. Google cited the fact that the events took place nearly a decade ago and have already been addressed by the company.

Google’s data breach claim will join the even larger Mastercard competition claim which is currently before the UK Supreme Court. The claim was originally tossed by the Competition Appeals Tribunal, only to be reinstated with an entirely different litigation funder on board (Innsworth, taking the place of Burford Capital).

The Supreme Court’s ruling on both cases will have a major impact on both sectors going forward, especially as pertains to the appetite levels of funders looking involve themselves in either data breach or competition class actions.