Former Employee Imprisoned for Deleting Evidence in Breach of Interim Injunction

...was imprisoned for six weeks for contempt of court.

Best Practice

This case is a rare example of such an order being made in an employment context. It is a cautionary tale for others of the importance of complying with interim injunctions intended to preserve evidence ahead of a formal hearing.

In this particular case, the High Court noted:

"The system will not work if people think they can ignore court orders and destroy evidence. Those who do so can expect terms of imprisonment."

OCS Group UK Ltd v Dadi and Others

Mr Dadi was employed by OCS Group UK Ltd (OCS). OCS subsequently lost one of its aircraft cleaning contracts to a competitor, OmniServ, and it was intended that Mr Dadi would TUPE transfer to OmniServ.

Shortly before the TUPE transfer, OCS brought claims against Mr Dadi and others in the High Court for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and/or breach of confidence for sending confidential information belonging to OCS to their personal email accounts over a period of time. One of the defendants was a man named Mr Ahitan, who was an employee of OmniServ but had formerly been Mr Dadi's manager at OCS.

OCS also obtained an order for an interim injunction against Mr Dadi prohibiting him from disclosing or making use of any of OCS's confidential information. The terms of the interim injunction required Mr Dadi to preserve hard copy and electronic documents pending trial. It also prohibited him from disclosing the existence of the order to anyone else. The order stated that breach of the order would be a contempt of court that could result in imprisonment.

Mr Dadi subsequently deleted around 8,000 emails from his personal email account during the course of two days and informed Mr Ahitan and various family members about the injunction.

After taking legal advice, he decided to admit to the court what he had done at the return date hearing. He also offered his full cooperation in assisting OCS with recovering the deleted emails. This recovery however proved unsuccessful.

He was sentenced by the High Court to six weeks in prison for contempt. The Court noted that such a punishment was always a last resort. However, in this case the breaches had been 'deliberate and contumacious' . He also should have realised that the prohibition on tipping off was intended particularly in respect of Mr Ahitan who he had immediately informed of the interim order. Therefore a short sentence was ordered, both to demonstrate the court's marked disapproval of his actions and also as example to others.

For more information, please contact Eleanor Boyd in our Employment team on 0207 665 0940.