Judge: Former IBM employee ‘far from heroic’

A former IBM employee who claims she “blew the whistle” on alleged fraud at the company was told by a judge her behaviour was self-serving and “far from heroic or honourable”.

Mr Justice George Birmingham made the comment when he said he did not need to take any further action against Beate Schmid, of Carnakelly, Kilmainhamwood, Co Meath, over her failure to hand over confidential company information held in digital form.

She had faced jail for not paying a €1,000 fine for contempt over failure to hand over a memory stick and computer hard drive containing the information. She had previously claimed she discovered discrepancies in IBM’s sales records.