Ann Bevitt

Ann Bevitt's employment practice covers all aspects, both contentious and non-contentious, of employment law and employment-related matters. On the non-contentious side, she focuses on the employment issues arising out of international reorganisations, outsourcings, insolvencies and mergers and acquisitions. Her contentious work includes the enforcement of restrictive covenants and claims arising on termination of employment. In her privacy practice, Ann assists clients with compliance and risk management, advising on data transfers, privacy policies, monitoring employees and undertaking internal investigations (domestic and cross-border).

The full range of her privacy practice includes assisting clients with privacy and data security compliance and risk management and advises on issues such as effecting data transfers, drafting privacy policies, electronic marketing, monitoring employees, dealing with e-discovery, undertaking internal investigations (domestic and cross-border), responding to subject access requests and notifying breaches.

Ann works with clients including governments, multinationals, large corporations and individual senior executives, from industry sectors such as technology, venture capital and private equity, insurance, hotel and leisure, music, banking and financial services, recruitment and employment, biotechnology and pharmaceuticals.

Ann has rights of audience in all civil courts and significant experience as an advocate. She was called to the bar in 1992 and practiced as a barrister specialising in employment law for seven years before qualifying as a solicitor in 2000.

Ann has appeared on the BBC’s World Business Report discussing data transfers. She also regularly writes for legal and HR publications, including the Financial Times, CityAM, Management Today and Personnel Today. She is co-author of ‘A Guide to Hiring and Firing in Europe’, a contributing author for ‘Employee Privacy: Guide to US and International Law, Trade Secrets, and Sale and Supply of Goods and Services’ and ‘A Practical Guide to UK and EU Data Protection Law’.

Ann is recommended and described as a "key figure" for data protection work in the latest edition of The Legal 500 UK (2016).

Select publications:

• Author, "DSARs: are the courts flexing their muscles (again)?," PDP Journals, March 2021
• Quoted, "Roundtable: What You Really Need to Know About Data Protection in H2 2020," The Lawyer, November 2020
• Quoted, "BA Breach Penalty Sets New GDPR Precedents," ComputerWeekly.com, October 2020
• Quoted, "BA Fine for Data Breach in 2018 Sharply Reduced," Financial Times, October 2020
• Quoted, "Employee-Monitoring in Europe Comes Under Spotlight After H&M Fine," Wall Street Journal, October 2020
• Quoted, "GDPR Compliance Codes on the Horizon," Data Economy, June 2020
• Quoted, "GDPR One Year On: What Has HR Learnt?," HR Magazine, June 2019
• Quoted, "How to fix employee gagging clauses," Financial Times, February 2019
• Co-Author, "GDPR and AML a perfect paid," Money Laundering Bulletin, August 2018
• Co-author, “GDPR Governance: How Much is Enough?,” Strategic Risk, January 2018
• Co-author, "Handling SARs now and after May,” PDP Journals, January 2018
• Author, “Getting privacy policies GDPR ready,” Thomson Reuters Practical Law, November 2017 
• Author, “Employee “consent” under the GDPR,” Thomson Reuters Practical Law In-House Blog, August 2017 
• Co-author, “GDPR: the good, the not so bad and the opportunities,” Information Age, May 2017 
• Co-author, “Preparing for the GDPR — advice for employers,” PDP Journals, June 2017
• Co-author, "The risks with data profiling," PDP Journals, January 2017
• Co-author, "Seven key data protection New Year's Resolutions companies should be making," PDP Journals, January 2016
• Author, "Challenges with workplace wearables in the EU and US," PDP Journals, October 2015

Speaking engagements:

• OneTrust DataGuidance: "Thought leaders in Privacy: Ann Bevitt," October 2019
• Thomson Reuters GC Leadership Summit: "Preparing for and embracing GDPR to drive your business forward," 29 June 2017
• V3's Enterprise Mobility Summit panel discussion: "Workplace Transformation: How to build workspaces to support a new generation of mobile workers," 25 February 2015   
• 14th Annual Data Protection Compliance Conference panel discussion: "Implementing the Lessons Learned from Recent Data Breaches," October 2015