The main executive violated confidentiality by downloading thousands of files when he resigned: Court

Singapore – Around the weather He resigned from the position of chief of relations with investors at a Singapore Fund Management Company, a man downloaded thousands of documents from his cloud drive.

Mr. Rajan Sunil Kumar was subsequently sent by his former employer, Hayate Partners, for violating confidentiality by accessing and downloading documents and keeping copies of documents beyond termination of his employment.

The files included documents regarding Hayate’s investment strategies; Personal identification information and details of the clients’ bank account; minutes of meeting and call journals; and personal identification information of the company’s key personnel.

After the court received the court order to hand over its electronic devices for medical examination by Hayate’s experts, Mr. Rajan deleted them clean.

He then claimed that his former employer had no evidence to show that he had kept the documents downloaded beyond the termination of his employment.

In a decision issued on March 14, a judge of the High Court stated that the only reason for Hayate did not have such evidence is due to the intentional and deliberate acts of Mr. Rajan to delete the requests on his devices.

Justice Dadar Singh Gill said: “This is similar to a thief who deletes the video materials surprising his act of stealing, and then saying that no one can prove that he has stolen something.”

The judge found that Mr. Rajan violated his confidentiality obligations by downloading certain documents to the personal MacBook and keeping the files after the termination of his employment.

But Justice Gill He also found that Mr. Rajan did not violate the confidentiality for other downloads that were made on his work laptop Dell, which was returned to the company upon cessing his employment.

Justice Gill ordered the deletion of cache files that remain in MacBook under the Hayate supervision or forensic expert and lawyers.

Hayate’s request for damages will be evaluated at a separate hearing.

The company incorporated from Singapore held a capital market services license and mainly managed the Hayate Japan’s own capital fund.

It was registered with the Monetary Authority in Singapore as a financial institution at the time of the procedure.

A verification of the Straits Times of his current state shows that a termination notification has been filed.

Mr. Rajan, who is 38 This yearHe was the head of the company’s investor relations from December 9, 2019 until December 22, 2021.

Its main role was to reach potential investors in order to promote the fund.

During his employment, the company did not offer ordinary salaries.

This became more and more a bugbear, because Mr. Rajan, who is in India, needed to present his squares to request citizenship in Singapore.

Finally, it bid the verbal resignation on December 8, 2021.

The company performed an audit of its IT activities as part of its ordinary protocol when an employee resigns.

In total, it is assumed that Mr. Rajan downloaded about 4,800 distinct files from the company Cloud storage in his MacBook over three days in 2021, on December 8, December 20 and December 21.

It was assumed to have kept these files after the termination of his employment.

Hayate, represented by Mrs. Sharon Chong in Rhtlaw Asia, sued him in 2022.

The company was based on the clauses in his appointment letter to claim that he was contractually obliged not to keep confidential information.

Hayate also obtained a court decision for Mr. Rajan to hand over all the devices that were used to download the confidential information, so that they can be examined by his medical experts.

Mr. Rajan surrendered MacBook and iPhone after deleting most of the applications on the devices.

Hayate claimed that Mr. Rajan knew that the elimination of requests could delete the crucial metadata and limit the evidence against recoverable by medical experts.

Mr. Rajan, represented by Mr. Alfred Dodwell, claimed that there is no explicit Terms of his appointment letter that imposed an obligation on him not to access and download the information for purposes that are not related to work.

He accepted that the discharges made on December 8 and December 21 were in his MacBook, but claimed that the December 20 downloads were in the Dell laptop.

The explanation of Mr. Rajan to delete the requests was that he did not know who he gave the devices and that he started in a new job.

In his decision, Judge Gill said that Mr. Rajan’s explanation for the deletions sounded empty and that he was unsatisfactory.

Regarding the downloads of December 8 and December 21, the judge concluded that it is more likely than that Mr. Rajan has kept the confidential documents in his personal devices beyond his last day.

The judge said it is more likely that the discharges of December 20 be in the Dell laptop, based on the calendar Downloading and synchronizing between Mr. Rajan’s devices and the company’s servers.

Mr. Rajan said he had downloaded the Skype chat journals on December 21 to be used as evidence to file complaints to various authorities against Hayate.

But Justice Gill said that Mr. Rajan has already gathered the necessary proof, taking numerous screenshots of Skype conversations regarding the problem of his salaries and it is not necessary to download the entire chat journal.

• Selina Lum is a senior law correspondent to The Straits Times.

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