Mike Cannon-Brookes wins court order to probe | Australian Markets

Atlassian founder Mike Cannon-Brookes is probing the non-public pc data of an ousted lieutenant who tried to ship delicate data to the billionaire’s estranged spouse Annie.

Sidelined Cannon-Brookes Companies Pty Ltd financial controller Kevin Chiu has failed in his bid to stop legal professionals and a pc professional employed by Mr Cannon-Brookes going by his personal storage gadgets and electronic mail accounts.

The NSW Supreme Court docket motion towards Mr Chiu comes because the Cannon-Brookes are wrestling over the carve-up of a $24 billion fortune derived from his success with software program company Atlassian.

The injunction and damages motion was sparked by the invention of a collection of festive season electronic mail communications between Mr Chiu, Ms Cannon-Brookes and the previous Cannon-Brookes household workplace financial controller Catherine Manuel.

Cannon-Brookes Companies has claimed within the NSW Supreme Court docket that Ms Manuel was sacked on November 27 for severe misconduct. Ms Manuel went to work with Ms Cannon-Brookes’ new business Good Collective.

Mr Chiu allegedly tried to ship downloaded pc data titled HR Backup from his Google folder to Ms Manuel, after which to each his former colleague and to Ms Cannon-Brookes.

The folder allegedly contained 966 recordsdata that included employment contracts, remuneration and bonus correspondence, worker tax and superannuation particulars, medical certificates, visa and police test particulars, and committee minutes and assembly papers.

Cannon-Brookes Companies chief financial officer Faris Cosic instructed the NSW Supreme Court docket that Mr Chiu was confronted on February 4 and acknowledged making an attempt to share the downloaded data with Ms Manuel and Ms Cannon-Brookes.

Mr Chiu was given a show trigger discover as to why he shouldn’t be sacked and was ordered handy over his personal laptop computer in addition to all personal storage gadgets used for his work..

Mr Chiu handed over the laptop computer and supplied to delete all company data for his personal gadgets, however declined to supply usernames and passwords for Cannon-Brookes Companies to gain entry to his data.

Legal professionals for Mr Chiu instructed his employer on February 6 that he was employed to carry out work for the Cannon-Brookes household workplace and was required to take instructions from each Ms Cannon-Brookes and Mr Cannon-Brookes.

Mr Chiu had defined that the emails have been within the unusual course of his work.

However in giving Cannon-Brookes Companies investigators entry to Mr Chiu’s storage gadgets and accounts, Justice Kate Williams mentioned Mr Chiu had not supplied any proof of instructions from Ms Cannon-Brookes to share the knowledge with Ms Manuel.

The truth that Mr Chiu copied Ms Cannon-Brookes’ Gmail tackle into an electronic mail he despatched at 8.45pm on Christmas Day doesn’t assist an argument that sharing the HR Backup Folder was within the unusual course of his work, the choose mentioned.

“It is inherently improbable that those duties extended to sharing confidential information of the kind that Mr Cosic’s evidence indicates . . . with a person whose employment had recently been terminated by CBS for alleged serious misconduct,” she mentioned in her judgment.

She mentioned there was a severe query to be tried in Cannon-Brookes Companies legal motion.

The company is asking for a everlasting injunction stopping Mr Chiu sharing confidential data plus damages.