When the Supreme Court dealt a substantial blow to collective proceedings for data protection claims in Lloyd v Google,(1) surely we all knew that would not be the end of the story? Since then, there has been action in the courts on data protection related cases and now a case in the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has reason to make data protection professionals sit up and pay attention!

The claim

In early 2022, Dr Liza Lovdahl Gormsen applied to commence opt-out collective proceedings (this is where the class members automatically become part of the claimant class unless they actively opt out) under the Competition Act 1998 against Meta Platforms Inc., Meta Platforms Ireland Limited and Facebook UK Limited (collectively described as Meta below).