Email: Accidental recipient refused to delete it
A family law firm has had to take legal action against the ex-husband of a client after an associate accidentally sent confidential information about another client to him.
Kent firm Jones Nickolds was granted an interim non-disclosure injunction in March, renewed in April, against Ian Pearce, who had forwarded the email to various authorities.
Mr Justice Murray said Mr Pearce had “a particularly contentious relationship” with the law firm because of its continuing work for his ex-wife in their divorce, including complaints to the Solicitors Regulation Authority that the regulator had not entertained.
It appeared his aim was “to embarrass or cause difficulties” for the solicitors, rather than act in the public interest, as he claimed.
The ruling from April has only just been published.
The information in the email clearly contained “confidential and legally privileged information” of the other client, known only as ‘AA’, the judge said, as well as related confidential advice from a tax adviser.
Despite knowing this, Mr Pearce refused to delete it and maintained he had “a civic duty” to disclose it in the public interest, having connected AA with the Panama Papers through a Google search.
He sent it to HM Revenue & Customs, South Wales Police, an MP and the Information Commissioner’s Office.
In continuing the injunction, Murray J said Jones Nickolds Ltd (JNL) was likely to establish at trial that Mr Pearce owed it a duty of confidence and “had made a number of statements and taken certain actions (such as posting messages on X) that carry an express or implied threat” to breach that duty.
The judge found it likely that the firm would be able defeat at trial a public interest defence.
“One of my primary reasons for this view is that a fair and impartial reading of the email does not justify the sinister complexion that Mr Pearce puts on it.”
He added: “From the evidence filed by JNL, as well as Mr Pearce’s own statements to JNL, it appears that Mr Pearce’s principal motivation in adopting the position he has taken on the email is not to protect the public interest, but rather to use the email to embarrass or cause difficulties for JNL and, in particular, for the solicitors at JNL who are representing his ex-wife.”
In its evidence, the firm said that, although AA’s real name was “associated in some way with the Panama Papers scandal”, there was very little information about the nature and extent of that association and nothing in the email appeared to relate to the Panama Papers.
Murray J said it seemed likely that this evidence would be accepted at trial, assuming nothing else linking AA to the Panama Papers emerged.
“This limited association established by the Google search will not, therefore, provide Mr Pearce with any real support for a public interest defence to this claim.”
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