Ocado Loses Ruling on Destruction of Messages by Lawyer

(Bloomberg) -- Ocado Group Plc lost a ruling related to its ongoing legal fight with one of its co-founders after a judge dismissed its claims against a lawyer who ordered the destruction of messages that could have been used as evidence.

The U.K.’s largest online-only grocer accused Raymond McKeeve, former partner at Jones Day law firm, of contempt of court for instructing a computer technician to “burn” messages on a private app. Ocado says these messages could have been used as part of a dispute with its co-founder Jonathan Faiman and his new firm, Today Development Partners.

A London Judge dismissed Ocado’s application Thursday, calling it “fragile and disputed.”

Ocado said it would appeal the ruling, although it wouldn’t affect the underlying case against Faiman and Today Development. The company said the ruling was “surprising and disappointing.”

“McKeeve has admitted ordering the destruction of documents immediately after learning of the search order,” Ocado said in a statement. “He did so to prevent Ocado from being able to access that material.”

Lawyers for McKeeve declined to comment on the judgment.

Former Friends

The extraordinary battle between two former friends and co-founders, the other of whom is current Chief Executive Officer Tim Steiner, became public last year when both sides filed lawsuits against the other.

Ocado Embroiled in Legal Fight With Co-Founder’s Rival Firm

Ocado, whose retail partners include Kroger Co. and Marks & Spencer Group Plc, is suing Faiman and Today Development for “conspiracy to misappropriate and misuse Ocado’s highly sensitive business confidential information.” Faiman poached Jonathan Hillary, a senior Ocado employee, as its chief operating officer, who passed confidential documents to Faiman while still employed at Ocado.

McKeeve, who is a friend of Faiman as well as his attorney, gave instructions to a TDP employee to burn the messages after learning Ocado had obtained a court order to search the files, Ocado said at a December court hearing. The email accounts were digitally recovered, but the messaging system was irretrievably destroyed, along with the messages.

Judge Marcus Smith said the issue was determining what had actually been destroyed. The problem is that “the evidence regarding these documents is going to be hard to adduce,” he said.

McKeeve said he didn’t interfere with the justice system and decided to destroy the messages to keep his wife, a member of the European Parliament whose name was used as a username, out of the dispute.

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