In a decision that has UK companies up in arms, on 22 October the UK’s High Court (court of appeal) and notably in a first, ruled that an employer, in this case the Morrisons supermarket chain, was vicariously liable for the data leak that was committed in 2014 by a disgruntled former employee, which saw the personal details of some 100,000 employees being made publicly available and that the supermarket will have to pay millions of pounds in compensation to the victims of the data breach. The nation’s fourth largest chain has already stated it will be challenging the ruling. Nonetheless, observers are worried about the consequences of the decision that has sparked fresh fears among business leaders over data security issues.
Will Morrisons have to pay out millions in compensation for the 2014 data leak? The High Court (see the ruling here) has answered ‘yes’. Most observers have called the ruling ‘bewildering’, especially since an earlier ruling from December 2017 had decided the opposite, and the employee in question was severely punished in a separate earlier 2015 court case.
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