British Airways customers are in line for compensation payouts after the airline reached a settlement over a data breach in 2018.
The BA hack saw the personal details of 420,000 customers and members of staff compromised between August 21 and September 5 after they were redirected to a fraudulent site.
Law firm PGMBM had been leading collective legal action against BA following the data breach, and previously claimed 16,000 people were seeking compensation.
In an update today, lawyers confirmed a settlement had been reached with BA - who did not admit liability - on confidential terms.
PGMBM previously estimated that each claimant could be in line for £2,000 in compensation.
However, the exact amount to be paid out as part of the settlement, as well as how many people will get compensation, has not been disclosed.
Collective legal action is where a number of people come together to sue a company as a group, rather than each individual person having to state their case.
As the class lawsuit with PGMBM has now closed, the law firm isn't taking on any new applications for compensation.
It had been taking on victims of the cyber attack on a no-win, no-fee basis - as a settlement has been reached, this means they will take a percentage of the payout will go to PGMBM.
There have been other law groups also bringing joint action against BA over the 2018 hack.
Harris Pogust, chairman of PGMBM, said: “We are very pleased to have come to a resolution on this matter after constructive mediation with British Airways.
“This represents an extremely positive and timely solution for those affected by the data incident.
“The Information Commissioner’s Office laid out how BA did not take adequate measures to keep its passengers’ personal and financial information secure.
“However, this did not provide redress to those affected. This settlement now addresses that.”
BA should have emailed you back in 2018 if you were a victim of the attack.
In order to be eligible for compensation, you needed to have had your personal data compromised as a result of the breach.
The airline was fined £20million over the hack in October 2020 by the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) - far less than the £183.4million the ICO originally recommended.
A spokesperson from BA said: "We apologised to customers who may have been affected by this issue and are pleased we've been able to settle the group action.
"When the issue arose we acted promptly to protect and inform our customers."
