The law firm putting together a legal ‘group action’ for home movers affected by the Simplify IT meltdown has told The Neg it believes the conveyancing firm faces a potential GDPR litigation ‘nightmare’.

A spokesperson for Keller Lenker has confirmed that it has an initial 50 people signed up to its group litigation or ‘class action’ and that the legal effort will concentrate on two areas.

This includes litigants seek recompense for any data breach. This is a ‘compromise of security leading to the accidental or unlawful destruction, loss, alteration, unauthorised disclosure of, or access to protected data’.

Under rules set out by the Information Commissioners Office (ICO) those who believe their data rights have been breached under GDPR are entitled to claim compensation for any damage caused by any organisation if they have broken data protection law, including any ‘distress they may have suffered’.

The law firm also says it will be looking into whether any of the people who join the group litigation have also suffered any material loss from sales falling apart due to the IT problems at Simplify.

Keller Lenkner is calling on estate agents to refer any clients to them who believe they may fall into one or both of these categories.

Security breach

The group action follows the announcement on 7^th November that Simplify had taken down its IT systems following a ‘major security breach’ which it has alerted police may have been criminal.

“In our experience, data security incidents of this scale usually uncover a catalogue of security errors within a company,” says the Keller Lenkner spokesperson.

“And, if Simplify failed to adequately protect its data/systems from criminals, it must be held legally responsible.”

Simplify’s latest update says: “We very much regret any uncertainty and disruption that our clients and others may have experienced.”

CLC statement

The body that oversees Simplify and regulates the sector, the Council for Licenced Conveyancers (CLC), has released a statement that says: “Simplify rightly took a cautious approach to the restoration of systems and developed different processes to enable transactions to progress.

“The group continues to make progress and this is reflected in the steep fall we have seen in the number of contacts from Simplify’s clients to the CLC from a peak in the second week after the incident.”