Collective redress in the UK


15th February 2008.  In a groundbreaking legal action which saw UK consumers included within a US ‘class’ for the first time, top tier US claimant firm Cohen Milstein Hausfeld & Toll LLP (CMHT) this day secured an agreement for £73.5 million of redress from BA and Virgin for UK ticket-holders.

Acting on behalf of all business and public ticket-holders who flew Virgin or BA between 11 August 2004 and 23 March 2006, CMHT successfully launched and then settled a class action lawsuit in the US against both airlines who had admitted illegally fixing the price of fuel surcharges.

Supporting CMHT in the UK, Spada’s communication role was to help educate national business and consumer audiences as to their rights of redress and the newly won mechanism for retrieving their own money.  The brief came in the wake of the firm’s launch in London.

News of the settlement broke unexpectedly early at 12.09am on 15th January.  Spada brought forward telephone based media coaching into the small hours, with approval of all press materials achieved by 4am.  The consultancy’s teams then swung into action, arranging a press conference for later that day and contacting broadcast journalists first thing to establish control of the break.  At 7am, the first broadcast of the story went out over the airwaves.

The result was blanket positive coverage for the story and CMHT’s commentary across all national print and online broadsheets, with national broadcast appearances including Radio 5 Live, BBC News 24, ITN, Sky News and Channel 4, and subsequent exposure in all leading legal, transport and competition trade media.