Lesley Hannah

Experience

Antitrust/Competition

Lesley has been one of the lead partners on the Hausfeld team dealing with:

• The opt-out collective action filed with the CAT on behalf of an estimated 19.5 million eligible UK users of smartphones and tablets running on Google’s Android operating system relating to excessive and unlawful charges on purchase in the Google Play store. The claim alleges that Google unfairly restricts consumers from accessing potential competition from other app distributors, by requiring smartphone manufacturers to pre-install a bundle of Google’s proprietary apps and services including the Google Play Store as well as imposing other contractual and technical restrictions.
• The representative collective action filed with the CAT on behalf of some 19.6 million eligible UK iPhone and iPad users relating to excessive and unlawful charges by the Apple App Store. The claim alleges that Apple’s conduct violates section 18 of the UK Competition Act 1998 and Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
• Representing Foundem in an abuse of dominance claim against Google linked to the EC's infringement finding in relation to Google Shopping 
• Acting for the proposed class representative, consumer advocate Julie Hunter, in collective proceedings filed against Amazon.com, Inc. seeking damages on behalf of UK consumers for alleged anticompetitive conduct in relation to Amazon’s ‘Buy Box’.
• Air Cargo, bringing claims in the High Court on behalf of some 100 corporate groups against British Airways in relation to the worldwide cartel in air freight surcharges - one of the largest and lengthiest competition damages action brought in Europe to date. The claim settled after a complex 6-month mediation process in December 2018.

Technology & Data Breach

Lesley was one of the partners leading the team which: 

• Filed a CPR 19.6 representative action brought on behalf of Duncan McCann, on behalf of up to 5 million British children aged under 13 and their parents in the High Court – alleging that YouTube’s methods of targeting underage audiences and harvesting their data constitute major violations of the UK Data Protection Act and the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), both of which were designed to protect citizens’ privacy rights.