How to protect your company against employees stealing information

There are a number of reasons why an employee might send confidential company information which belongs to their employer to their personal email address. More often than not, though, this is done to save evidence for a later tribunal claim or to assist in themselves setting up in business as a competitor.

In the case of OCS Group UK Limited v Jagdeep Dadi the employer showed evidence that Mr Dadi had been mailing confidential documents relating to the company to his personal email address, which resulted in an interim injunction being granted which forbade Mr Dadi disclosing the documents and also required him to give information regarding disclosures he had already made.

Despite the injunction, Mr Dadi told his new employer and some of his family about the order, and also deleted more than 8,000 emails that he had sent to himself. The employer took him back to court and the result was a 6 week prison sentence due to Mr Dadi being in ‘contempt of court’.

This case serves as warning to any employee that sending confidential company information to personal email addresses can have serious consequences!

Top tips for preventing employees from taking company information:-

• Review your cyber security
• Make sure you’ve got restrictions and confidentiality clauses in your contract of employment
• Make sure employees are aware of consequences
• Consider Garden Leave for high risk employees