The case centres around the action of a disgruntled former employee in 2014, who sent bank, salary and National Insurance details of almost 100,000 members of staff to newspapers and data sharing websites.
Co-ordinating the law suit
JMW Solicitors, a firm based in Manchester, that is co-ordinating the lawsuit, confirmed the final number of current and former employees at 5,954. It
confirmed a case management hearing is listed at the Royal Courts of Justice for May 16 to 18.
Staff are pursuing the claim for damages after having their application for a Group Litigation Order approved by the High Court in London last November.
Last July, employee Andrew Skelton was sentenced to eight years at Bradford Crown Court, after being found guilty of fraud, securing unauthorised access to computer material and disclosing personal data.
Skelton was unhappy about an official warning that stopped him from using the company’s mail room to send out personal packages, the court heard.
The data breach and court case cost Morrisons £2M.
At the time David Holderness reviewing lawyer, complex casework Unit, Crown Prosecution Service Yorkshire and Humberside said that Skelton was in a position of “considerable trust” as a senior internal auditor at Morrisons.
‘Abused his position’
“He abused this position by uploading this information – which included employees’ names, addresses and bank account details – onto various internet websites,” he said.
“He then attempted to cover his tracks and implicate a fellow employee by using this colleague’s details to set up a fake email account.”
In March, Nick McAleenan, a data privacy lawyer at JMW Solicitors, confirmed that the supermarket chain had filed a formal defence claim in which it denied liability for the leak.
A Morrisons spokesman said: "We are contesting this case and we not accepting liability for the actions of a rogue individual. We are not aware that anybody suffered a financial loss from this breach.”