Company vs. Employee: Whose Side Is the Truth On?
Dubai Court Rejects Company's AED5M Claim Against Ex-Employee
The Dubai Civil Court of First Instance has dismissed a company's AED5 million lawsuit against a former employee, saying the firm failed to pay the expert fee and didn’t provide evidence to back up its claims.
The company accused the man of using offensive language with colleagues and clients, leaking trade secrets, damaging the company’s reputation and stealing clients. The employee had signed a confidentiality agreement and a one-year non-compete clause. According to the claim, he had worked there for two years before resigning, and afterwards used inside information – including details of the company's structure and pricing – to launch a website.
The court appointed an accounting expert and an IT specialist to look into the employee's access to client and pricing data, check the website and see whether there had been unfair competition, leaked secrets or client poaching. However, the company didn’t pay the AED30,000 fee for the expert and offered no acceptable explanation. So, under Article 112 of the Evidence Law, the court ruled the company had lost the right to rely on the expert appointment – and with it, the key tool for proving its case.
On the evidence before it, the court found nothing sufficient to establish guilt. As a result, the case was dismissed and the company was ordered to pay the fees, expenses and attorney's fees.
Two Employees Cleared in Dubai After False Accusations
Another case took place in Dubai a bit earlier. According to the accused party, the dispute began after the employee resigned in May 2022, claiming the director had harassed her and, when she refused his advances, retaliated by accusing her and a colleague of misappropriating Dh513,581 through forged invoices. A court-appointed panel of accounting and technical experts later found that the invoices were only preliminary documents, that no illicit funds had been received, and that an email presented as proof of forgery had itself been falsified. The two were acquitted in September 2024. In their civil suit, they sought compensation for legal costs, lost commissions, missed job opportunities and reputational harm.
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SearchInform is an information security and risk management product vendor as well as an MSS provider. The company's clients are more than 4000 companies in 20+ countries. Today, the team has products and services for comprehensive protection against insider threats at all levels of corporate information systems: FileAuditor (the DCAP class solution); DLP system with extended functionality; Risk Monitor (advanced platform for internal threat mitigation); SIEM system, Information Security outsourcing service.
