Virgin Media Group Action launched for data breach victims

The Virgin Media Group Action has been launched for victims of the 2020 data breach, and the telecommunications giant now has weeks to respond or face court action.

In the event that they do not respond and agree to resolve cases amicably by way of an agreed resolution, an application for a Group Litigation Order (GLO) is set to be issued. This will usually lead to claimants’ cases being brought together under one set of efficient proceedings. Crucially, it will usually also lead to a final deadline for people to join the case as well.

Now that the Virgin Media Group Action has been launched, victims of the data breach are urgent to sign-up and start their case as soon as possible.

What happens now?

The Virgin Media Group Action has been launched. This means that what is intended to be a final ‘pre-action’ letter has been sent to them where we have asked that they agree to resolve cases or face court action.

The court action that follows is intended to be an application for a Group Litigation Order (GLO). This is an efficient way in which thousands, or even millions, of people can bring their cases together on one united front and as part of one set of court proceedings. This means that we can pursue large volumes of cases efficiently and cost-effectively, and it is a common way of pursuing large scale actions of this kind.

Importantly, a GLO that is agreed to by the Court will also usually lead to a final cut-off point for people to join the action. This usually means that people need to be a part of the group action and must be in compliance with any court requirements to benefit from the GLO. This is why we often talk about the importance of deadlines, as missing out on it could mean that you miss your chance to claim.

Based on early estimations, missing the deadline could mean that a victim loses the chance to secure up to £5,000.00 in compensation.

If a GLO is issued, it is set to be the second GLO in the GDPR era; the first being the British Airways data breach case that we are on the Steering Committee for. Given the number of people affected, this action could be bigger and could lead to an overall pay-out of up to £4.5bn.

How do I join?

You can join the Virgin Media Group Action if you are one of the 900,000 victims of the data breach by going to the dedicated website here.

As long as you have received notification that you are affected, you should be eligible to sign-up for a case without delay.

Do I need to do much?

You just need to sign-up for a case on the Virgin Media Data Breach website here. You can then benefit from No Win, No Fee legal representation.

Thereafter, we can keep you updated as to what is happening with the action. We expect that the next stage, as referenced above, will be the issuance of a GLO.