How much does it really cost to make a PFEW compensation claim?

Are you, or have you recently been, a police officer in England & Wales? If so, you could be owned significant data breach compensation following a 2019 Police Federation of England and Wales (PFEW) data breach.

But how much will it cost you to claim PFEW compensation? Here is everything you need to know.

No-win, no-fee PFEW compensation claims

At KP Law, we are running the PFEW data breach action on a no-win, no-fee basis. This means you won’t pay a penny towards your case if your claim is unsuccessful. There are no hidden charges or fees.

If your claim is successful, you will pay a success fee to cover our costs. We take this fee from your compensation. It is the only thing you will pay if you win.

Our prices are reasonable, and we always explain what you will have to pay if you win before you sign up. The following is an example of how our success fee works. For this example, we have assumed that our success fee is 25% of the compensation awarded to you.

EXAMPLE ONE:

Your claim is successful, and you are awarded £2,000 compensation.

Money awarded to you:

Less 25% Success Fee:

Balance you will receive:

£2,000

-£500

£1,500

EXAMPLE TWO:

Your claim is not successful, and you are not awarded any compensation.

Money awarded to you:

Our Success Fee:

What you will pay:

£0.00

£0.00

A no-win no-fee contract is also known as a Conditional Fee Agreement (CTA)

When you appoint us as your lawyers, we ask you to sign a CFA. Our agreement includes the following clauses:

What the CFA says

What you will pay

Paying Us If You Win

This section explains that you are liable for our basic charges, expenses and disbursements, a success fee, and the premium for any After The Event (‘ATE’) insurance if your claim is successful.

We understand that this wording can be confusing and that you might be worried about how much you will have to pay if you win.

Legally, we must word our CFA in a specific way, but if your claim is successful, the only thing you will pay is our success fee. We will recover all the other costs, charges, and expenses that you are liable for from the defendant or the insurance provider.

Disbursements & Expenses

This section sets out the expenses and disbursements that we might incur on your behalf as we progress your case. It also explains that you might be liable for these charges.

We might incur expenses on your behalf while working on your case. However, we take out insurance to protect you from these costs if we lose. And, if we win, we recover these from the defendant.

You won’t have to pay these disbursements and expenses, win or lose.

Basic Charges

This section explains our costs (hourly rate) and what we charge for (e.g. making a call, sending a letter, negotiations, court proceedings, etc.).

We do charge for the work we do on your case. But if you win, the defendant pays these costs (excluding our success fee, which you will pay).

If you lose, these costs will be covered by the insurance we take out on your behalf.

Apart from our success fee, you won’t pay these charges, win or lose.

What Do I Pay If I Lose?

This section explains that, if you lose, while you won’t have to pay our charges, you might be required to pay our disbursements and expenses. It also states that you might be responsible for some, or all, of your opponent’s costs.

We know this can be confusing as you sign up for no-win, no-fee.

However, we take out insurance to protect you from these costs. So you won’t have to pay a penny.

What is ATE insurance?

We expect to win the vast majority of our no-win, no-fee cases. And, when we do, the defendant must pay your costs, fees, and disbursements. However, we also take out insurance to insure against the risk of losing a case. This is called ‘After the Event’ insurance (ATE). With ATE insurance, if we lose your case, the insurance provider will pay any costs.

Our T&Cs

If you lose your case, if you abide by our T&Cs, you won’t pay anything (to us or anyone else). And if you win, you will only pay our success fee. Here are your obligations under our no-win, no-fee agreement:

You must not mislead your solicitor
You must not fail to co-operate
You must act in accordance with the agreement and the advice given by your solicitor
Should you wish to terminate your claim after you have signed up, you will be responsible for all costs and disbursements* incurred by your solicitor

* A payment we make on your behalf to a third party. If we lose your case, you do not have to pay these costs. If we win your case, we will recoup these from the other side.

How can officers claim PFEW compensation for the breach of their data?

If your details were compromised in the PFEW data breach, you could be owed compensation. We are helping a significant number of police federation members who have been notified that they are affected by the data protection failure, and we can help you too.

We are representing police officers in this case on a no-win, no-fee basis to ensure they have access to the absolute best lawyers without worrying about legal fees. Any members who wish to invite friends and colleagues to join this action can do so when signing up.