High Court says bank need not comply with numerous and repetitive DSARs which were being used for a collateral purpose

The High Court has dismissed a Part 8 claim against a bank for allegedly failing to provide an adequate response to the claimant’s Data Subject Access Requests (DSARs). The decision highlights the robust approach that the court is willing to take where it suspects the tactical deployment of DSARs: Lees v Lloyds Bank plc [2020] EWHC 2249 (Ch).

The court found that the bank had adequately responded to the DSARs, but gave some strongly-worded obiter commentary on the court’s discretion to refuse an order, even where the claimant can demonstrate that the bank has failed to provide data in accordance with the legislation. In the court’s view, there were good reasons for declining to exercise its discretion in favour of the claimant in this case (even if the bank had failed to provide a proper response), including that: the DSARs issued were numerous and repetitive (which was abusive), the real purpose of the DSARs was to obtain documents rather than personal data, and there was a collateral purpose underpinning the requests (namely, to use the documents in separate litigation with the bank).

For more information see this post on our Banking Litigation Notes blog.