Court to get final report into alleged Independent News and Media data breach on Thursday
Both INM, and its former chairman Leslie Buckley (pictured), were sued on grounds including alleged breach of privacy and data protection rights. File photo: Sam Boal/Rollingnews.ie
A final report by inspectors appointed to investigate the alleged data breach at Independent News and Media (INM) plc in 2014 is to be provided to a High Court judge on Thursday, July 25.
Mr Justice Garrett Simons said on Tuesday he would have to decide whether to publish the report but his initial view was that it should be published unless there are parallel proceedings which may be affected by the report.
The judge was speaking during the brief mention of the case which arose out of an investigation by the Corporate Enforcement Agency (CEA), formerly Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement, into the alleged data breaches following protected disclosures by two former executives including its then CEO Robert Pitt.
As a result, in 2018 the High Court appointed inspectors to investigate the allegations involving INM. In 2019, INM was sold to European media group, Mediahuis.
The corporate enforcement investigation has also given rise to other legal proceedings by a number of individuals who say they have been damaged by the alleged breaches.
These include former INM CEO Gavin O'Reilly and former INM director of corporate affairs Karl Brophy who sued both INM, and its former chairman Leslie Buckley, on grounds including alleged breach of privacy and data protection rights.
They settled their cases last year.
INM separately sued Mr Buckley claiming there was no evidence that anyone other than him knew about the alleged data breach. Mr Buckley denies all allegations of wrongdoing.
All parties were represented by senior counsel when the case was mentioned on Tuesday before Mr Justice Simons who has also dealt with issues related to separate proceedings taken by affected parties.
Seán Guerin SC, for Mr Buckley, applied to the judge for liberty to issue a motion seeking access for his client to the inspectors' report which his solicitors had been told would be made available to the court on Thursday.
The judge questioned whether the motion was strictly necessary as he would have thought Mr Buckley would have semi-automatically received it as he (the judge) would have to decide whether to publish it, or publish it in a redacted form. He said he did not know how long the report would be.
Mr Guerin said it appeared it would be several hundreds pages and Mr Buckley supports its publication. The judge said he would grant liberty to Mr Guerin to issue his motion for short service this Thursday.
The judge said the only circumstances in which he was minded not to publish the report were if there were parallel proceedings which might be affected.
Lawyers for Mediahuis Ireland Ltd, for former INM non-executive directors, for businessman Denis O'Brien who is a former majority shareholder in INM, and for Robert Pitt, also made applications for liberty to issue similar motions which were granted and also made returnable for Thursday.
Neil Steen SC, for the CEA, said while his client would receive the report, the CEA has "no idea" of what was in the report and did not receive any drafts of it. If the report comes to the CEA first, it would usually ask for some time to consider it, he said.
The judge said he would deal with that on Thursday.
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