Michael Yates

Spear’s Review

Taylor Wessing partner Michael Yates is a specialist across a range of contentious matters, and has a strongly international practice with clients who include influential Middle Eastern families.

Yates is skilled at obtaining injunctive relief, stopping stories and removing content through tact rather than aggression, and has obtained many apologies, damages, takedowns and corrections for high-profile HNWs.

A memorable case was the landmark privacy injunction ERY v Associated Newspapers Ltd [2016], which added weight to the premise that a criminal investigation of an individual can be considered to be private information – hence protectable.

Yates joined Taylor Wessing in 2017 from media law firm Lee & Thompson.

Adviser Profile

Michael is an information litigator who specialises in advising high-net-worth and high-profile individuals and companies on reputation management, information, cyber and media law disputes. He works with both claimants and defendants, offering guidance on media law, reporting restrictions, NDAs, injunctions, and other related matters. 

On the claimant side, he advises stopping or mitigating media publication or third-party disclosure of defamatory or private information and seeking remedies. On the defendant side, he advises companies on managing cyber-attacks and the fallout, as well as how to protect publishers, platforms, data controllers and processors from legal exposure.