Three concerned their personal data accessed during alleged breach at INM seek court orders
Three people who are concerned their personal data may have been accessed during an alleged data breach at Independent News & Media in 2014 are seeking court orders which would allow them use certain materials in contemplated legal proceedings.
Former INM CEO Gavin O'Reilly, his former secretary Mandy Scott and Karl Brophy, former INM director of corporate affairs, want permission to use materials provided to them last year for the hearing of an application to appoint inspectors to INM.
A range of materials, including sworn statements from the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) and INM executives, were provided to various third parties on condition those could be used only for the hearing about whether to appoint inspectors. Anyone seeking additional use of the material had to ask the court.
The president of the High Court, Mr Justice Peter Kelly, was told the ODCE, who had sought the inspectors' appointment, was prepared to consent to the three using the materials in their contemplated proceedings.
INM was refusing consent for reasons including data protection concerns and lack of clarity about the nature of the contemplated proceedings and the identity of the respondents to those, he was told.
Counsel for the three said one of the entities against whom proceedings are likely is INM itself and his side should not be required at this stage to identify the nature of intended proceedings.
He also argued there could be no valid data protection objections as the materials were part of court proceedings heard in public.
Because of INM's opposition, there would have to be a formal hearing of the application by the trio, the judge said.
He fixed May 7 for the hearing and also directed the inspectors appointed last September to investigate INM's affairs be put on notice of that.
Last September, the judge appointed two inspectors - barrister Sean Gillane SC, who specialises in criminal law, and Richard Fleck, a UK based solicitor and corporate governance expert - to investigate the conduct of affairs at INM.
Their first report is due to be provided to the judge in April.
ODCE Ian Drennan applied for inspectors in spring 2018 following his office’s year-long investigation into matters raised in protected disclosures made in 2016 and 2017 by former INM CEO Robert Pitt and INM's Chief Financial Officer Ryan Preston.
Arising from that investigation, the ODCE raised concerns about issues including an alleged data breach at INM in 2014 involving data being exported from the jurisdiction and interrogated by third parties.
The then INM Chairman Leslie Buckley, who stepped down in March 2018, has said that was done as a cost-cutting exercise called Operation Quantum.
Last September, Mr Justice Kelly ruled the ODCE had provided evidence that "well justified" inspectors being appointed.
He was satisfied many questions “remain to be answered” about “disquieting” issues raised by the ODCE, including the alleged removal from INM, and interrogation, of the data of 19 persons, including journalists, former INM employees and executives and two senior counsel for the Moriarty Tribunal.
The judge was also concerned about the circumstances concerning the proposed acquisition by INM of Newstalk Radio from a company of INM's largest shareholder, Denis O'Brien, and the proposed payment by INM of a €1m 'success fee' to another company of Mr O'Brien's.
While neither of those payments proceeded, they were "certainly suggestive of an unlawful purpose directed to the benefit of Mr O'Brien directly or indirectly and the detriment of the company", he said.
The appointment of inspectors' was in the public interest in the context of the regulation of public companies, the nature of INM's business and the importance of a free press, he held. On foot of the material before him, he found the ODCE had met certain criteria under Section 748 of the Companies Act 2014 for the appointment of inspectors.
