Case dates back to 2014
In a case dating back to 2014, thousands of Morrisons employees are now suing the company after their personal details were posted on the internet.
The London High Court is now seeking to make the supermarket liable after a senior auditor at the retailer’s Bradford headquarters posted sensitive payroll information of nearly 100,000 employees on the internet. This included their bank, salary and national insurance details, addresses and phone numbers.
The accused auditor, Andrew Skelton, was later jailed.
Demanding compensation for the “upset and distress” caused by the leak, the 5,518 current and former staff are now accusing Morrisons for failing to prevent the leak. The company has, however, denied liability.
Jonathan Barnes, counsel for the employees, told the court that Morrisons has already been awarded £170,000 compensation against Skelton, who wanted to do the company ‘some real damage’.
Barnes said it was a “simple complaint” by the employees who were required to provide the information when they joined Morrisons, adding: “We say that, having entrusted the information to Morrisons, we should now be compensated for the upset and distress caused by what we say was a failure to keep safe that information.”
The trial, which is concerned only with liability, will reportedly last two weeks.
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