Court of Appeal upholds data protection ruling in favour of law firm DWF, dismissing claimants' appeal in Yesim Kul and others v DWF Law LLP

The Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal seeking to overturn a lower court ruling that cleared law firm DWF of data protection breaches, upholding the finding in favour of the defendant firm. The case, Yesim Kul and others v DWF Law LLP, was reported by Legal Futures as a bid to challenge the original ruling on data protection grounds that was rejected at appellate level. The claim arose from a witness statement DWF prepared in 2021, known as JS1, which analysed 372 road traffic claims, almost all of them brought by clients of North London firm Ersan & Co, and which was used to plead fundamental dishonesty in five low-value personal injury cases. Of the 137 claimants who originally brought data protection claims, all but three discontinued, and those three sought declarations and compliance orders under the Data Protection Act 2018 with no claim for compensation. Mrs Justice Eady dismissed the claim at first instance in July 2025, and on appeal Lord Justice Warby held that the appellants' argument on proportionality and pseudonymisation was a new case that had not been argued below.