The High Court has made an order for the inspection and imaging of electronic devices and computers belonging to ex-employees and their new employer, and destruction of any confidential information belonging to the old employer found on them.
While the court could find no previous authority for ordering the destruction of relevant material, it felt justified in doing so because the defendants had admitted using their employer's confidential information and the evidence showed that they could not be trusted to seek out and delete the relevant material themselves. The terms of the order was subject to several assurances, including one that copies of the imaging of the devices would be preserved so that if material might subsequently be found to have been wrongly removed, it could be restored.