Data Access Requests And Discovery - Recent Irish Judicial Development

In a recent decision, the Irish High Court held that a court may order a person to make discovery of personal information that he or she has a right to obtain from a third party on foot of a data access request made pursuant to data protection laws. This judgment is particularly significant for individual litigants, especially where those parties are commencing discovery¹.

Background

The case concerned a claim by a plaintiff company as against the defendant, a former employee, for injunctive relief and damages for breach of contract. The plaintiff company claimed that the defendant, who had taken up employment with another firm operating in the same field, assisted with the recruitment of other employees of the plaintiff and supplied the competing firm with confidential information concerning the plaintiff's business, including know-how and trading strategies.