Online files: Firm gave password-protected access to documents
A London law firm has been granted an injunction for the return of thousands of confidential and privileged documents that it disclosed by mistake to the opposing side in litigation.
Forsters meant to send to litigant in person Zia Uddin personal data it held on him after he made a data subject access request (DSAR).
However, not only did it accidentally give him access to 823 documents from its clients’ file – 95% of everything in the file – but it also sent him a further 2,500 documents from unrelated matters dating back to 2009 relating to other clients called Uddin.
Forsters is acting for a Mr and Mrs Alloatti on their claim in nuisance against Mr Uddin, their neighbour, and for interference with rights of way.
Last July, Mr Uddin made the DSAR, seeking surveillance recordings of his property, audio files regarding noises from his property, expert reports relating to the alleged nuisance and other documents relevant to the defence of the claim.
In August, Forsters provided a URL link for accessing the information, along with a user name and password, to enable Mr Uddin to download the documents.
The following day, Mr Uddin pointed out what had happened and Forsters blamed e-disclosure provider KLDiscovery for “inadvertently” providing access to the wrong data file.
However, Mr Uddin refused to return or destroy the documents, leading the law firm to seek an injunction.
Deputy High Court judge Guy Vassall-Adams KC accepted that most of the documents [1] in the Alloatti file were both confidential and protected by legal professional privilege.
A sample of the remaining files indicated that, while “not generally of a high level of sensitivity”, they all contained personal data about third parties and in many cases would also be classed as private or confidential.
The judge noted that Mr Uddin had sought to make use of some of the documents in both the underlying claim and his own claim accusing two members of staff at Forsters of harassment, breach of data protection rights and misuse of private information, among other things.
At the time of the ruling last month, Forsters was seeking summary judgment over this claim.
Judge Vassall-Adams said: “This is not only a case of ‘obvious mistake’; it is a case where the mistake involved so many documents and was so glaring and so obvious that the defendant, who is not legally qualified, wrote back to the claimant on 19 August 2025, one day after the documents were shared with him, condemning the claimant for a breach of confidence.”
But despite his initial, correct assessment of the situation, “the defendant very quickly managed to persuade himself that he was entitled to hold on to the documents”.
The judge said it was “understandable that an unrepresented party who receives privileged documents from an opposing party to litigation and who sees that they might help his case would wish to be able to use them to his advantage”.
But privileged documents were “a class apart”, he went on. “The exceptionally strong public interest in members of the public being able to consult lawyers in confidence makes privileged documents an exception to the general rule that all relevant documents must be provided to the opposing party in litigation.”
It may be that Mr Uddin was entitled to some of the documents as a result of either disclosure or the DSAR, but that was not his decision to make.
“The right course is to require the claimant to deliver up these documents so that the claimant can discharge its legal obligations in the usual way, under the control of the court.”
Judge Vassall-Adams added that there was “no possible justification” for Mr Uddin to hold on to the documents unrelated to his case.
He granted Forsters the injunction it sought for delivery up of all the documents and deletion of any copies Mr Uddin held.
“Notwithstanding that there is some confidential and privileged information that the defendant cannot un-know, so far as practicable, the court should strive to put the claimant back in the position that it would have been in had the obvious mistake not occurred.”