ARTICLE · 22 JULY 2025

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How Anton Piller Orders Rescue Your Data Before It Disappears

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Imagine discovering that an ex-employee has copied your client database and is already trading on it. In minutes they can encrypt, delete or dump that data offshore.

South AfricaPrivacy

Jodi Poswelletski

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Imagine discovering that an ex-employee has copied your client database and is already trading on it.In minutes they can encrypt, delete or dump that data offshore. Under POPIA your company now faces fines of up to R10 million, possible jail exposure for directors, and reputational ruin.

No matter how meticulously Confidentiality Provisions in contracts of employment may be drafted they are important in protecting such confidential or proprietary information once it has been appropriated by an erstwhile employee.

When time, evidence and trust are evaporating simultaneously, the legal system does have an emergency lever: the Anton Piller order.

1. What an Anton Piller order really is

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