How did saving work files for 'future use' end manager's employment?
The Fair Work Commission (FWC) recently dealt with a case involving a land acquisition and delivery manager who was dismissed for transferring confidential information outside his employer's network after learning of his redundancy.
The worker, who had received positive performance reviews and a recent pay increase, transferred company documents days before his last working day.
He claimed he had saved the information hoping to return to the organisation in the future to work on a specific project.
The worker started as a senior property officer with the Cross River Rail Delivery Authority in August 2022 and was promoted to land acquisition and delivery manager in February 2023.
Between 3-7 June 2024, after being notified of his redundancy, he transferred 2.4GB of data to Filemail, an external file-sharing platform.
The employer's IT monitoring systems detected these transfers. According to the evidence of the employer's general counsel, the transferred files included documents from the "Operational Tenure" folder (117 documents) and "Compensation" folder (11 documents), many of which were labeled "Commercial in Confidence" and "Legal in Confidence."
As stated in the evidence, when initially contacted by the head of people and culture on 18 June 2024, the worker denied transferring any documents.
Later that day, after receiving detailed allegations, he acknowledged taking documents but said they were "for constructive purposes for the Delivery Authority" if he returned.
The employer's ICT Use Policy, as quoted in the decision, stated: "All employees are expected to respect and safeguard all aspects of information confidentiality.
Employees are expected to treat all Authority information, whether paper-based or electronic, as confidential. No one is permitted to disseminate Authority information outside [the organisation] without specific authorisation from the author or management."
Throughout the investigation, the worker maintained he had only downloaded the operational tenure folder. He provided a statutory declaration stating he had deleted all electronic information when requested by the employer.
During cross-examination, the chief financial officer confirmed he "solely dealt with the facts before him" and that the worker's "good employment record at the Authority was not relevant to the decision made."
The Commission found: "It is an inescapable fact that [the worker] knowingly transferred information belonging to [the employer] that included confidential, sensitive and legally privileged information to a place beyond [the employer's] control. Much of the information transferred was not in the public domain or subject to public disclosure."
The Commission noted: "The fact that [the worker] ultimately did not use this material for another purpose is somewhat besides the point. [The worker] held a very senior position within [the employer's] organisation."
In dismissing the unfair dismissal application, the Commission concluded that "the [employer] had a valid reason for dismissal," and that there were "no other matters that would render the termination so harsh as to support a conclusion that the dismissal was unfair."
