Manchester United employees ‘sue the club for up to £100,000’ over major HR breach in which confidential data was ‘accidentally leaked in an email to casual staff’
- United accidentally leaked employee data to temporary workers via email
- The sensitive information included names, addresses and income
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A group of Manchester United employees are suing the club for up to £100,000 over a major HR blunder.
According to The sun167 temporary workers employed by the Premier League giants accidentally received emails containing confidential data from some permanent employees.
The data includes their payslips, names, addresses, social security numbers, along with their pension benefits and tax contributions.
It is understood the sensitive information was contained in a single file received by United temporary staff in their stadium tours, catering and hospitality departments.
The incident happened six years ago and was reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office.
A group of Manchester United employees are suing the club for up to £100,000 over a major HR blunder
But the employees whose data was leaked have since filed a damages claim in the High Court, claiming the leaked information could be used to commit financial fraud.
“The club’s billionaire owners must take responsibility for this mistake,” Jonathan Whittle of Your Lawyers, who represents 32 claimants, told The Sun.
A United spokesperson said: ‘We take the data privacy of our employees very seriously and regret this isolated incident, which occurred in 2018.
‘Steps have been taken to prevent this from happening again and we have informed the Information Commissioner’s Office, who took no further action.’
The lawsuit comes as a number of United jobs could be at risk, after Sir Jim Ratcliffe appointed corporate restructuring firm Interpath Advisory – an offshoot of accountancy firm KPMG – to carry out a major cost cutting at the club to meet the Profit and Sustainability Rules.
Sir Jim Ratcliffe, the new co-owner of Manchester United, has appointed corporate restructuring and insolvency firm Interpath Advisory to make significant job cuts at the club
United’s financial results for the second quarter of 2023/24, released on Tuesday, showed staff costs rose to £95.1 million in the period, up from £77.3 million last season, an expenditure that according to Ratcliffe stops Erik Ten Hag’s team.
As exclusively revealed by Mail Sport on Wednesday, the review by Interpath began earlier this month.
While United have no set savings target, the review is expected to lead to a 20 to 25 percent reduction in the club’s workforce, which in practical terms means hundreds of jobs, a plan first revealed by Mail Sport last December. .
