In OCS Group UK v Dadi a sentence of 6 weeks imprisonment has been imposed by the High Court on an employee who breached an interim injunction in a dispute over confidential information.
Mr Dadi worked for the Claimant, an aviation cleaning contractor at Heathrow. Having found that Mr Dadi had sent confidential company information to his private email he was served with an interim injunction. The injunction prevented Mr Dadi from sharing, deleting or destroying any information that he had gathered and also prevented him from discussing the order with any other person other than his own legal representative. However, before seeking legal advice, Mr Dadi committed several breaches of the order by deleting around 8,000 emails and speaking to friends and family about the injunction. Once he had taken legal advice Mr Dadi admitted to breaching the order and agreed to cooperate with the Claimant by trying (unsuccessfully) to recover the deleted emails.
The court took a number of factors into consideration when sentencing including Mr Dadi’s family circumstances and his willingness to cooperate once he had sought legal advice. Following the approach in Crystal Mews Ltd v Metterick the court imposed the minimum term of imprisonment appropriate with regard to each of the breaches. Imprisonment was considered necessary in order to act as a deterrent and in respect of his further compliance with orders of the court and as a warning to others.
Written by
Lorraine Emery
20th July 2017