On reading this I’m not surprised
A paralegal has been threatened with contempt of court and prison after she failed to give back a law firm’s laptop containing confidential data.
Maria Pruzhanskaya was loaned a Dell Vostro laptop by Maitland Walker LLP in 2023 when she was placed with the firm through Flex Legal, now owned by Mishcon de Reya.
14047721 David Courtney Boyle v Govia Thameslink Railway Limited & Others – Ruling (Breach of Confidentiality Ring Order) 12 Apr 2024The computer contained confidential data regarding an ongoing case against Govia Thameslink which is being heard at the Competition Appeal Tribunal.
To enable her to work on the matter, Pruzhanskaya gave undertakings to the CAT which made her part of a ‘confidentiality ring’, in which the firm agreed to have sensitive data destroyed when an advisor left the case, and in which she agreed not to disclose it without relevant consent and to securely dispose of it at the conclusion of the proceedings.
But after she completed her engagement with the firm in November 2023, she was reluctant to give back the laptop. She wouldn’t hand it to couriers, and she wouldn’t hand it over to someone from the firm, either.
Pruzhanskaya insisted that she was “ready and willing” to return the device, only the firm “forgot” to collect it from her when she left, and when a courier came in December, “I asked for ID – and he ran away”.
In a humdinger of a hearing which joined the paralegal as a party to the proceedings, puzzled CAT President the Honourable Sir Marcus Smith said, “This does not come close to explaining why, months later, the laptop remains in Ms Pruzhanskaya’s possession”.
Pruzhanskaya, who has also worked at Simmons & Simmons and Withersworldwide and harbours aspirations of becoming a solicitor, represented herself at the hearing, where she portrayed herself as a stickler for confidentiality who was only retaining the laptop to maintain the security of the data.
“What I suggest [is] to meet in person, not to pop into my house for a second, not to throw the laptop [with] the confidential information in the office that someone will open it for me, and not to go to an office in two hours straight away when everyone [is] on break, as Flex Legal offered to me”, she said.
The judge said it was “quite clear” that Maitland Walker had “bent over backwards” to attempt to secure the laptop, and that Pruzhanskaya had given “no proper reason” for failing to return it.
In advance of the hearing he suggested to Pruzhanskaya that she could short circuit the whole affair by simply handing over the equipment when she attended the tribunal. The transcript reveals how well that went:
THE PRESIDENT: Really what I’m going to ask is: do you have the laptop with you today? I mean, we suggested you might bring it.
PRUZHANSKAYA: No.
THE PRESIDENT: No.
PRUZHANSKAYA: Yeah, when I received in the mail yesterday, I specifically requested who was writing to me because it was written “I suggest”, but it’s not an order and a direction.
THE PRESIDENT: No, it was not, I can’t direct you to hand it up –
PRUZHANSKAYA: Was it you? Because it wasn’t signed.
THE PRESIDENT: Ms Pruzhanskaya, I act through the very helpful Registry, who send letters out on my behalf, by the Tribunal. It was not an order, it was not a directive; it was a suggestion, because if you’re saying “I’m willing to give up the laptop, it’s just that Maitland Walker have failed to collect it properly”, then one way of resolving all of this is for you to bring it here and we can sort it out now. But you haven’t done that, and there we are.
PRUZHANSKAYA: Because they refuse to engage –
THE PRESIDENT: No, no, it is on this occasion, Ms Pruzhanskaya, you.
PRUZHANSKAYA: Pardon?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you’re giving –
PRUZHANSKAYA: I am here for the hearing –
THE PRESIDENT: Okay, that’s fine. If you don’t want to do it, I can’t force you, not without an order, so that’s fine.
PRUZHANSKAYA: No, I will give it, but I was called to the hearing and we are talking about this –
THE PRESIDENT: No, Ms Pruzhanskaya, you are clearly not willing and that’s fine.
PRUZHANSKAYA: I am willing.
THE PRESIDENT: Are you?
PRUZHANSKAYA: I am.
THE PRESIDENT: Well, then, if that’s the case, Ms Malloch, do we want to talk about how the matter can be resolved more quickly? Ms Pruzhanskaya, how are you going to return the laptop, if you’re willing? Well, how?
PRUZHANSKAYA: Should I …?
THE PRESIDENT: Just tell me how we’re going to resolve this. If you’re willing to resolve matters, then we can — you see, let me be frank, you’ve been quite evasive in terms of not answering your intentions regarding the laptop. This is the first occasion you’ve actually said that you’re willing to return it. Now, if that’s the case, then explain to us how you’re going to do it and we can move on a little bit more quickly. But the ball’s in your court there.
Further back and forth resulted in an exasperated Sir Marcus Smith exclaiming, “I am not Maitland Walker, I am president of this Tribunal and a High Court judge. You can hand it over to me, you can hand it over to anyone. Now, you’ve chosen not to do that and that’s why we are having to proceed”.
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