Brite-Tech sued by ex-director for negligence, breach of duty of care

PETALING JAYA: Brite-Tech Bhd (BTech) and its wholly owned subsidiary Brite-Tech Corp Sdn Bhd (BCSB) are both being sued by a former executive director of BTech and a former director of BTech's wholly owned subsidiary Hooker Chemical Sdn Bhd (HCSB) for negligence and breach of duty of care.
BTech and BCSB were served with a writ of summons and statement of claim, dated Jan 22, 2018, in the High Court of Kuala Lumpur by Chan Ah Kien. The writ of summons and statement of claim were received by BTech on Jan 26, 2018 and by BCSB on Jan 25, 2018. The amount claimed was not revealed.
The plaintiff is claiming for general damages for negligence and breach of duty of care; general damages for breach of confidence; general damages for breach of privacy; aggravated damages; and exemplary damages.
BTech and BCSB are also to be instructed to disclose all the personal data in all agreements or contracts signed by the plaintiff thus far; and are to apologise publicly admitting the mistake in all major national newspapers in Malaysia.
The plaintiff also claims for interest of 5% on all the amount stated.
In his statement of claim, the plaintiff alleged that BTech, BCSB and HCSB had via its employees, during June 19 to 22, 2017 negligently divulged a letter from the Inland Revenue Board containing his personal data to certain employees in BTech, BCSB, HCSB and also to the tax agent, namely CAS Tax Services Sdn Bhd.
The plaintiff stated that the actions by the employees of BTech and its subsidiaries had breached their duty of care in preserving his personal data as an ex-director of the group and did not obtain his prior consent before releasing his personal information to third parties.
The plaintiff claims that the incidents have directly and indirectly caused the breach of confidence, breach of privacy, infringed his privacy by divulging his personal information such as salaries and director fees to staff, ex-staff and third parties in which as a result has caused embarrassment, anguish, humiliation, disappointment, frustration, loss of dignity and anxiety to the plaintiff.
BTech and BCSB have appointed solicitors to file the response and defence against the litigation.