Gulati & Ors v MGN Ltd (un-redacted)

Damages for misuse of private information are not confined to distress. They may also compensate the loss of privacy, autonomy and dignity inherent in a serious infringement, provided the award remains compensatory rather than vindicatory.

Where a wrongdoer has concealed or destroyed evidence, the court may draw realistic adverse inferences about the scale and consequences of the wrongdoing. Repeated unlawful interceptions, separate unlawful investigations and distinct publications may require separately assessed awards, subject to avoiding double recovery. The Vento bands do not govern privacy damages, and the 10% uplift in Simmons v Castle does not apply where a recoverable CFA success fee remains available.

Eight claimants sued MGN Ltd, proprietor of the Daily Mirror, Sunday Mirror and The People, for widespread voicemail interception, unlawful information-gathering by private investigators, and the publication of articles obtained through those activities.

MGN admitted liability in general terms and accepted that most pleaded articles would not have been published without unlawfully obtained information. The trial therefore determined the true extent of the intrusions, quantum, aggravated damages and whether further disclosure-type relief could be sought. The court used generic evidence of institutional phone hacking, incomplete records and the individual evidence of each claimant to assess compensation.

1. Judgment was given for the claimants. MGN’s admissions did not resolve the scale of the wrongdoing. The court found that voicemail interception at the Mirror group was widespread, sustained and deliberately concealed. Applying the evidential principle in Armory v Delamirie, the court drew realistic adverse inferences from missing records and from the use and destruction of untraceable phones. It found serious and repeated hacking of each claimant, often extending to associates’ phones.

2. Compensatory damages for misuse of private information may reflect more than distress. They may compensate the loss of control over private information, autonomy, dignity and the seriousness of the invasion itself. This was not an impermissible award of vindicatory damages. The court rejected the submission that the relevant loss was confined to injury to feelings.

3. The court held that the repeated interceptions, private-investigator activities and publications were sufficiently distinct to justify separate but coordinated awards. It assessed the effects of individual publications, general hacking, other unlawful investigations, cumulative distress and, where appropriate, aggravated damages. It avoided double counting where hacking had produced an article. No general tariff applied, but £10,000 per year was an appropriate starting point for serious routine hacking, subject to case-specific adjustment.

4. The court declined to apply the Vento bands to privacy claims. It also held that claimants with CFAs falling within section 44(6) of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 could not receive the 10% Simmons v Castle uplift.

5. The awards totalled £1,237,000. The court held that it had jurisdiction to order further inquiries and disclosure concerning the information unlawfully obtained, but reserved the exercise of that jurisdiction and any consequential further damages pending further submissions.

High Court (Chancery Division): First-instance assessment of damages following admissions of liability by MGN. The judgment records that earlier strike-out applications failed: [2013] EWHC 3392 (Ch) .