Two former Independent News and Media plc (INM) executives want the High Court to order former INM executive chairman Leslie Buckley to provide further disclosure of documents related to the alleged data breach at the company in 2014.
Former INM chief executive Gavin O’Reilly and former INM director of corporate affairs Karl Brophy also want Mediahuis Ireland Group Ltd, which bought INM in 2019, to disclose documents beyond January 2017.
Mr O’Reilly and Mr Brophy are suing Mediahuis and Mr Buckley over the alleged breach of their privacy and data protection rights during what they describe as “a hack”.
Mr Buckley disputes this description because a hack normally involves someone outside a company gaining access to data, whereas he says he was an executive directing the interrogation of information.
Mr O’Reilly and Mr Brophy claim it was part of a clandestine operation, directed by Mr Buckley on behalf of then-majority INM shareholder Denis O’Brien, dressed up as a cost-cutting operation. Data is alleged to have been given to another company outside the jurisdiction, where it was interrogated over a period of months.
The defendants deny the claims.
As part of the pretrial process in which the parties have agreed to most requests for discovery of documents, Mr O’Reilly and Mr Brophy are also seeking orders requiring Mr Buckley to provide documentation relevant to the action post-April 30th, 2016, when, it is claimed, the Office of the Director of Corporate Affairs (ODCE) first raised concerns about the alleged data breach.
In 2018, the High Court appointed two inspectors to investigate the alleged breaches and other matters on the application of the ODCE. On Thursday, the court heard the investigation is “at a very advanced stage”.
Oisín Quinn SC, for Mr O’Reilly and Mr Brophy, said that despite Mr Buckley’s claim that further discovery was a fishing operation, there was no question that there is relevant information, including communications and messages from the defendants, post the April 2016 cut-off date offered by the Buckley side.
Sean Guerin SC, for Mr Buckley, said the court has a duty to conduct litigation in an efficient and cost-effective way.
This application would be a “monstrous waste of resources and a monstrous waste of costs” to obtain thousands of documents, including all the work done over the years by the ODCE inspectors and other bodies, he said. An offer to extend the time limit by another 18 months had been declined by the plaintiffs, he said.
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In relation to the application to further discovery by Mediahuis, the court heard the newspaper was claiming public interest confidentiality privilege, namely that the information sought is protected by the confidentiality which attaches to the ODCE inspectors’ investigation. Mediahuis had already agreed a cut-off date of January 2017 for discovery.
Bairbre O’Neill SC, for Mediahuis, said her client took very seriously its responsibility in relation to the confidentiality of the investigation being undertaken by the ODCE inspectors.
The cohort now sought to include documents that only came about after the inspectors were appointed, and a number of steps have been taken to ensure that these matters are not leaked into the public domain, counsel said.
Mediahuis viewed as “entirely wrong” the view of the plaintiffs’ counsel that the information should be disclosed and the issue of confidentiality dealt with later, she said.
Nessa Cahill SC, for the ODCE inspectors, said while her side was taking no position on the discovery dispute between the parties, their main concern was the impact on the investigation process and on the confidentiality commitments given by those who gave evidence to the inspectors and the reciprocal confidentiality given by the inspectors.
There was a public interest in confidentiality, she said. Whether it is labelled privilege or not, it was the protection of that confidentiality that the court had to weigh up in the context of its task, she said.
The case resumes next week before Mr Justice Garrett Simons.
