Ecostore takes former worker to High Court

Company alleges chemist shared confidential information with rival

Ecostore has taken legal action against one of its former chemists, alleging she shared confidential information with a competitor. Gillian Helen Worth, an accomplished chemist with a PhD in synthetic organometallic chemistry, appeared in the High Court at Auckland last week accused of sharing company secrets with natural cleaning products company Earthwise, where she was subsequently employed.

Ecostore, which sells natural skincare products, laundry detergents and cleaning supplies, wishes to search Worth’s personal laptop, which she had used to send and receive company emails while employed there for six months from May 2016.

Worth’s lawyer, Anne Toohey, told the court her client accepted that she had confidential Ecostore information on her laptop and would be happy to delete it. “She doesn’t even want it,” she said. “[Earthwise] don’t even want Ecostore’s confidential information — they’ve got their own formulations.”

Earthwise had conducted an examination of their email system and found only four emails from Worth containing information she had received while at Ecostore, none of which contained anything confidential, Toohey told the court.

Ecostore’s lawyer Josh McBride said the company had discovered a trail of emails, some containing personal information, which she had sent to her personal computer from Ecostore.

The company considered it a “deliberate and sustained harvesting activity”, alleging that every time she found something of interest she sent it to her own laptop. “She’s prepared to destroy [the information] — that’s good — but we’d like to have a look to see what she has done with it,” McBride said.

If an independent expert examined the laptop and found nothing untoward the matter would be resolved — “that would be the end of it”, he said.

Toohey said Ecostore’s management would have been fully aware Worth had been using her personal laptop and had ample time to tell her to delete any confidential information before she started working for a competitor — something they had been made aware of prior to her starting the job — but they did not.

Toohey said the level of aggression being directed towards Worth was “a very frightening place to be”.

“Ms Worth appears to have become a pawn in the competition between these two companies.”

She said Worth would have a hard time agreeing to a search of her computer because she had been a research scientist for years and it contained highly confidential information.

However, Toohey told the Herald that both parties ultimately agreed to try and negotiate terms for a search of the computer. If they cannot come to an agreement the matter may be recalled to court.

There was a further question of jurisdiction for the case, with Worth’s counsel seeking to have the matter removed to the Employment Relations Authority, which has far lower costs than the High Court.

“She doesn’t have the money to come here and litigate,” Toohey told the judge.

Justice Murray Gilbert reserved his decision on which authority should hear the case, should it proceed any further.