About

Team size: 23

What are the most important transactions, litigations or other major projects that you have been involved in during the last year?

There has been a lot going on but I’ll mention some of the most significant ones for the team. Firstly, the conclusion of an ICO investigation following the criminal cyber attack in 2018, seeing the ICO’s initial proposed £183m fine reduced to £20m with no admission of liability, following various legal and factual representations. We also settled the UK group litigation and achieving the dismissal of the US class action arising from the same incident. We engaged in a company-wide restructure to reflect the devastating impact of Covid-19 on commercial aviation. Following extensive consultation, British Airways was able to mitigate the number of redundancies, protect as many jobs as possible and reach industrial agreements across the main areas of the business. Regrettably, the restructure saw a significant number of colleagues leave the company. The legal directorate was included in this restructuring, and we sadly had to say goodbye to a number of valued members of the team.

We also worked on the deferral of £450m of deficit reduction contributions to the NAPS defined benefit scheme, settled two long-running class actions in Canada and Germany following the 2011 European Commission fine in respect of alleged cargo fuel surcharge cartel activities in the early 2000s and supported various liquidity initiatives.

There have been a number of legislative changes in response to Covid. Have these benefited your company or had any other interesting effects?

There have been numerous impacts, most notably the global travel restrictions which have had a devastating impact on the travel sector. The government’s Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has helped the airline retain many jobs through the crisis and BA availed itself of a loan under the Bank of England Coronavirus Corporate Financing Facility.

What were the main difficulties your company faced during the initial Covid lockdown?

2020 was an exceptionally difficult year as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. In British Airways’ 100-year history, the airline had never experienced a crisis of this magnitude, which forced us to vastly reduce our flying schedule, workforce, fleet and operation as we navigated continual, fast-changing global travel restrictions and three UK government lockdowns. During 2020 BA saw an average 66% reduction in its schedule compared to 2019, revenue down c70% and suffered an operating loss of c£3.5bn.

Did the Brexit deal reached at the end of 2020 give you and your business greater clarity for the future?

As a business, we undertook a comprehensive program of work to ensure that there was no interruption to BA’s flying program or supply chain as a result of Brexit.