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.

But the High Court heard yesterday while she had been suspended from her employment when the matter arose last April, she has since been dismissed following an internal disciplinary hearing.

Mark Connaughton SC, for IBM, said the time period for appealing her dismissal had expired.

The company had still not been given a copy of the memory stick or the hard drive, which had led to the contempt application for failure to obey an order to hand them over, he said.

While IBM was satisfied none of the confidential data had come into the public domain, it wanted previous court orders prohibiting her from disseminating it to remain in force.

Counsel said he was aware her circumstances had “changed radically”. He could “put it no further” but wanted previous orders to remain in force. The judge gave IBM liberty to re-enter the matter should there be any further breaches of the court orders