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Renegade contractor ordered to return files

An employer has won a court order for a contractor to return its confidential information, some three years after they parted ways on unfriendly terms.
Blue Badge Insurance Australia retained the contractor between April 2013 and November 2014 to provide advice on regulatory and compliance issues, and the end of the assignment was not "amicable".
Blue Badge then reminded the contractor about her confidentiality obligations, which included that she must return or destroy all documents, electronic storage media and other materials relating to or containing its confidential business information.
Blue Badge took court action after its numerous attempts to recover the documents failed, and NSW Supreme Court Justice Francois Kunc delivered his judgment on the same day as the hearing in the contractor's absence, satisfied that she "deliberately refused to engage" with the Court, and likely still had Blue Badge's confidential information in her possession.
He ordered the contractor to deliver up hard-copy documents, computers and other electronic storage devices for inspection, or to file an affidavit identifying each document, the manner in which they were held, the date in which she ceased to have custody of them, and why she no longer has each document.
"I am satisfied that all she has done (or not done) has been in an attempt to thwart both Blue Badge in the pursuit of its clear rights and the processes of the Court," Justice Kunc said, noting that her unreasonable conduct also warranted a costs order against her.
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