Information for UK Claimants in the Groundbreaking BA/VA Air Passenger Settlement

May 6, 2008

Following its groundbreaking £73.5m settlement earlier this year on behalf of UK air passengers in the price-fixing class action lawsuit brought against British Airways (“BA”) and Virgin Atlantic (“VA”), Plaintiffs’ co-lead counsel firms Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll and Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy are now able to release further details as to when and how BA and VA passengers who purchased tickets for long-haul flights between August 11, 2004 and March 23, 2006 will be able to claim their refunds.

Preliminary approval of the settlement was granted in a US Federal Court on April 25, 2008, and the following timetable for the remainder of the settlement process has been agreed:

Email notices explaining how to claim will be sent in June to all those passengers have registered for their refunds or for whom BA and VA have maintained contact information. After June, passengers will be able complete a claim form online to obtain a refund.
Letters will be sent from Cohen Milstein directly to registered business claimants setting out details of how they will be assisted in processing large claims volumes.
A notice detailing all the settlement terms will be posted on the www.airpassengerrefund.co.uk website by the middle of June.
Claimants who have any objections to the settlement must file those objections with the Court, in accordance with the procedures set forth in the class notice by 12 September 2008.
A final fairness hearing, at which the Judge will determine whether the settlement receives final approval, will take place in San Francisco, California on 26 September 2008. Any claimant’s objections to the settlement will also be heard at that time.
Corporate Travel Agents and businesses will be able to call the settlement administrator directly and attach their spreadsheets for processing claims.
All individual and business claims will begin processing in October 2008 on a rolling basis.

Commenting on the settlement, Anthony Maton of Cohen Milstein, said:

“We are delighted to confirm that since we announced this groundbreaking settlement for UK passengers on15 February, we have already received over 100,000 registrations from individuals and over 1000 registrations from businesses ranging from SMEs to blue chip firms. Having achieved such a significant resolution it is gratifying to see so many UK customers claiming back what is rightfully theirs. We would encourage consumers and businesses who have yet to done so to claim their refunds."

For further information and to register claims please either call free phone number 0800 043 0343 or access www.airpassengerrefund.co.uk.

ENDS

For further information or to arrange interviews please contact:

Beth Farrer/Rohit Grover
Spada
Tel: 020 7269 1430
bethfarrer@spada.co.uk / rohit.grover@spada.co.uk

Notes to editors:

Background to Air Passenger case

In February this year Cohen Milstein and its co-counsel in the United States, Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy announced a groundbreaking $200m settlement on behalf of almost 8 million US and UK passengers who purchased airline tickets from British Airways and Virgin Atlantic between August 11, 2004 and March 23, 2006. The settlement related to a class action lawsuit brought in the US courts on behalf of passengers who were overcharged for tickets as a result of the airlines’ illegal agreement to fix the prices of fuel surcharges at an artificially high level.

Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll

Cohen, Milstein, Hausfeld & Toll is one of the United States’ leading claimant law firms. Its reputation is synonymous with the protection of individuals, businesses, institutional investors and employees against the misconduct of governmental and corporate interests. It employs over 60 attorneys in four US cities, and has market-leading expertise in antitrust, civil rights, employee discrimination, consumer protection, securities fraud, environmental law and product liability law.

The firm’s recently-launched London office intends to build a pan-European “collective redress” legal practice, specialising in competition law and financial services. It will act for businesses and individual consumers who have been harmed by violations of competition law (European and domestic) financial services laws and securities fraud.

European managing partner Rob Murray has 20 years’ experience as a competition lawyer in both the UK and Brussels.
Vincent Smith, competition partner, joined Cohen Milstein from five years with the OFT where he led the competition enforcement division.
Litigation partner Anthony Maton has over 15 years of experience in complex international commercial litigation.
Ingrid Gubbay, formerly Campaigns Lawyer at Which?, is an independent legal consultant.

For more information about the firm please visit www.cmht.com

Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy

Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy is a leading litigation and trial firm in the United States. For over forty years, its attorneys have been at the forefront in litigating antitrust, securities, environmental, and civil rights actions throughout the United States. The firm presently is lead counsel in numerous competition cases involving world-wide price fixing conspiracies.