Rachael Baillie

Senior Associate
London

she / her / hers

OVERVIEW

Rachael is a commercial disputes lawyer and her practice focuses primarily on banking and commercial disputes. She was promoted to Senior Associate in January 2022.

Expertise

As well as her experience gained at Minter Ellison Rudd Watts and Kennedy’s, she held the position as a Judge’s Clerk at the High Court of New Zealand and as a Graduate Teaching Assistant at the University of Auckland.

Recently, Rachael practiced as a senior solicitor at boutique litigation firm, Wilson Harle, and advised TLT LLP as a consultant on a banking project managed by their banking litigation team, where she helped investigate the treatment of small and medium enterprise customers and made redress recommendations.

Clients

During her career, Rachael has advised and worked with a broad range of clients including retailers, personal lenders, telecommunication companies, public bodies, private individuals and corporates.

Working towards a diverse, equitable and inclusive work force is paramount to Rachael who is an active member of Hausfeld's Women’s Alliance group.

At Hausfeld, Rachael has been a pivotal member of the team working on FX Claim UK, a proposed collective action in respect of FX spot trading cartels.

Additionally, she is acting for:
- The claimant in R (on the application of All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking) v Financial Conduct Authority, in its application to challenge the lawfulness of the decision of the FCA not to establish a mechanism of redress following the exclusion of bank customers from the FCA’s IRHP compensation scheme. Permission was won in June 2023 (reported at [2023] EWHC 1616) and the upcoming trial is one of The Lawyer’s ‘Top 20 Cases’ of 2024.
- Acting on behalf of Phillip Evans to bring a collective action against 8 global banks who manipulated the FX market.
Experience that Rachael obtained prior to Hausfeld includes:
- Representing the claimant in R (on the application of All-Party Parliamentary Group on Fair Business Banking) v The Financial Conduct Authority, in its application to challenge the lawfulness of the decision of the FCA not to establish a mechanism of redress following the exclusion of thousands of bank customers from the FCA’s compensation scheme relating interest rate swap mis-selling.
- Advised public bodies on strategic pre-action matters and the avoidance of litigation in contract and procurement disputes.
- Advised clients on the disclosure of official information.
- Advised on equitable tracing of property, negligence claims, applications for High Court directions and insurance coverage.
- Advised on fair trading laws, credit contracts legislation and regulatory compliance.
- Defended applications for the disclosure of a client’s customer information in the civil and criminal jurisdiction.
- Defended a regulatory prosecution.
- Advised on contract, tort, private international and intellectual property cases.
- Acted in debt recovery proceedings, including a cross-border claim.
- Advised public bodies on licensing and prosecutorial decisions.
At Hausfeld, Rachael is a member of the team which filed a CPR 19.6 representative action in the High Court against Marriott International on behalf of Martin Bryant, representing millions of affected individuals concerning a major data breach involving the Starwood guest reservation database when unknown persons gained access to hundreds of millions of guest records between July 2014 and September 2018.