CA-2024-000578 - [2025] EWCA Civ 1117

On 17 October 2022, the respondent filed an application notice seeking an order striking out all the claims in their entirety pursuant to CPR r 3.4(2)(a) and (b) and/or summary judgment entered in its favour pursuant to CPR r 24.2(a)(i) and (b). The application in respect of the data protection claims was made on four grounds:

“(a)

damages cannot be awarded for ‘loss of control’ of data without proof that it caused material damage or distress; (b) the claimant has not suffered damage or distress above a de minimis level or such as to cross the applicable threshold of seriousness; (c) The claim constitutes an abuse of the court’s process pursuant to the principles established in Jameel v Dow Jones ...; and (d) with regard to certain claimants identified in the accompanying witness statement ..... no case of actionable damage having been suffered is advanced in the particulars of damage ...”

Ground (a) was based on the Supreme Court’s November 2021 decision in Lloyd v Google LLC [2021] UKSC 50, [2022] AC 1217 which held that pure “loss of control” damages are not available in a claim under the Data Protection Act 1998. By the time the application came on for hearing by Nicklin J on 27 February 2023, this point had been conceded and that part of the claim for damages had been abandoned. Grounds (b) to (d) remained alive, and were argued over two days of hearing in February 2023 and via further written submissions in May and June 2023.