Coillte sacked employee for leaking auction information

COILLTE dismissed a long-serving worker after discovering he leaked confidential auction information to a customer’s employee, an industrial tribunal heard.

Patrick Noone claimed unfair dismissal – but the Employment Appeals Tribunal dismissed his claim and upheld the semi-state forestry firm’s decision to sack him.

Employed with Coillte since 1978, Mr Noone was fired after the company concluded his actions constituted gross misconduct.

Mr Noone said he did not realise that the auction bidder reports were confidential and that he made no financial gain for providing the information to a forestry manager at a customer firm.

In his evidence to the tribunal, Mr Noone said that he did not ask the recipient of the information, identified only as J, why he needed the reports.

J told the tribunal that he sought information on the identity of buyers of lots of timber at auction. He said he did so out of curiosity and ‘never requested the bidder results’. He said that he did not gain any financial advantage from accessing the information.

After Coillte became aware of the breach in January 2014, Mr Noone was suspended with pay.

The marketing and sales director with Coillte, identified as RL, told the tribunal he became aware of the potential leak of auction information from a timber industry source in December 2013.

RL gave evidence that Mr Noone sent internal reports which contained details of customers that had participated in auctions. He told the Galway tribunal: ‘The information is very sensitive, is not publicly available, and could give an unfair competitive advantage to one customer over another.’

RL accepted that the breaches did not result in any loss to Coillte because they were detected after two incidents, and a pattern from the auctions process could not be established.

In its determination, the EAT found it was clear that Mr Noone ‘did not gain in any way whatsoever, either financially or materially, as a result of his actions’.

The tribunal also stated it was of the view that where an employee had an unblemished record of 36 years’ service, it was unfortunate that options other than dismissal could not have been explored.

Nevertheless, the EAT said it was satisfied Coillte was entitled to dismiss Mr Noone given the seriousness of the breaches.