Gayatri Sarathy > Chambers of Tom Weisselberg KC and Jane Mulcahy KC > London, England > Barrister Profile

Blackstone Chambers‘ members are well versed in handling high-profile data protection claims. Kate Gallafent KC continues to advise multiple institutions within the Catholic Church of England and Wales on a range of data protection matters. Gayatri Sarathy is ‘extremely clever‘ with ‘incisive attention to detail‘; she is appearing for the applicants in Wieder and Guarnieri v United Kingdom, a claim currently being heard before the European Court of Human Rights. The case concerns whether the interception of the applicants’ communications, and/or related communications data, falls within the UK’s jurisdiction for the purposes of Article 1 of the Convention.

Blackstone Chambers has ‘a superlative administrative law and human rights practice‘, noted for its ‘incredible strength in depth‘; the team attracts praise as being ‘exceptionally knowledgeable in relation to public and administrative law issues‘. The set has an excellent reputation for its expertise in providing advice on public law issues within a commercial context. In a prominent case highlight, Tom Hickman KC, Jason Pobjoy and Gayatri Sarathy were part of a team in chambers who represented the claimants before the Divisonal Court in R (HM) v Secretary of State for the Home Department, a challenge to the legality of the government’s secret and blanket policy to seize, search and retain data from the mobile phones of persons arriving the UK by small boats; the court ruled that the policy breached Article 8 ECHR and data protection laws. In another high-profile case, Lord Pannick KC and Monica Carss-Frisk KC appeared before the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal in Q & Tse v Commissioner of Registration, a case concerning the jurisdiction’s policy on the issuance of ID cards to transgender individuals who had not undergone qualifying gender reassignment surgery – the case also involved issues of the jurisdiction’s rules of temporary admission of English barristers. Paul Luckhurst is ‘an excellent litigator with a fierce intellect‘ who is sought after for his strength in human rights law. The senior end of the group was bolstered by the elevation of Tom Richards KC to silk in March 2023. Sir James Eadie KC, in his role as treasury devil, is the government’s first-choice outside barrister.

Praised as ‘one of the strongest sets for group litigation matters’, Blackstone Chambers offers a breadth of experience with ‘uniformly excellent barristers, across the range of call’. Notable instructions for Gayatri Sarathy include acting in Alex Neill Class Representative Ltd v Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Ltd & Ors, collective action proceedings in relation to allegations concerning the system for selling games and add-on content on the PlayStation Store, as well as acting for the proposed defendants in £850m proposed collective action proceedings in relation to allegations concerning the technical performance of certain iPhone models and operating systems. Shaheed Fatima KC is currently instructed for the defendants in numerous large group actions, including Municipality of Mariana v BHP and Okpabi v Shell, while Brian Kennelly KC represents Visa in Sainsbury’s Supermarkets ltd v Visa Europe Services, the long-running group litigation brought by Sainsbury’s and other retailers concerning the multilateral interchange fees charged by Visa and Mastercard, which recently went to the Supreme Court, with dozens of further claims before the CAT and the High Court.