Allegations departing Seven Group sales boss took sensitive documents highlights need for employers to protect secrets

Businesses need to aggressively protect company property from the outset to avoid messy and often embarrassing disputes when an employee departs, lawyers say.

The comments come amid allegations in the NSW Supreme Court that former Seven Media Group sales boss James Warburton took a box filled with sensitive documents with him when he jumped ship to rival Ten Network.

While lawyers for Warburton and Ten have denied the claims, experts says the case shows why companies should put in place clear contracts and good IT systems to protect themselves from the loss of confidential company data.

“When an employee is departing, it should be made very clear to them that anything that belongs to the company must be returned,” Melbourne lawyer and adviser Peter Vitale says.

According to Vitale, personal information ought to be labelled as such and its removal by a departing employee should be closely supervised.

“While most employers would tolerate a certain amount of personal use of email, the reality is with flash drives and storage media that are so readily usable, there’s no real need for people to store personal things on work computers anymore,” Vitale said.

Macpherson + Kelly Lawyers principal Andrew Douglas says disputes over company property can be a “considerable” problem, recalling instances where five senior salespeople attempted to walk with marketing business plans, financial figures and client lists.

Douglas recommends employers identify ownership of company property from the outset and include an explicit clause in contracts requiring company property to be returned immediately.

He also recommends companies make it clear that failure to return said items immediately could lead to an injunctive process, noting many people fail to return items stored at home.

According to media reports, Seven’s lawyer David Sibtain yesterday told the NSW Supreme Court that certain documents had been removed by Warburton or on his behalf when he departed, saying the documents could operate a “rule book”.

Ten wants Warburton to start as chief executive on July 14, but Seven says a non-complete clause in his contracts prevents him from starting before October next year.