Manchester United employees ‘sue the club for up to £100,000’ over major HR breach in which confidential data was ‘accidentally leaked in an email to casual staff’

A group of Manchester United employees are suing the club for up to £100,000 over a major HR blunder.

According to The Sun, 167 casual workers employed by the Premier League giants were accidentally sent emails containing confidential details of some permanent employees.

The data included their wage slips, names, addresses, National Insurance numbers along with their pension benefits and tax contributions.

It is understood the sensitive information was contained in a single file received by casual staff employed by United across their stadium tour, catering and hospitality departments.

The incident happened six years ago and was reported to the Information Commissioner’s Office. 

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But the employees whose data was leaked have since lodged a High Court compensation claim, in which they argue the leaked information could be used to commit financial fraud. 

‘The club’s billionaire owners should take responsibility for this error,’ Jonathan Whittle, of Your Lawyers, which represents 32 claimants, told The Sun.

A spokesperson for United said: ‘We take the data privacy of our employees very seriously and regret this isolated incident, which occurred in 2018.

‘Measures were put in place to prevent it happening again and we informed the Information Commissioner’s Office, which took no further action.’

The lawsuit comes as a number of jobs could be on the line at United, after Sir Jim Ratcliffe has appointed corporate restructuring firm Interpath Advisory – an offshoot of accountancy KPMG – to undertake a major cost-cutting exercise at the club to comply with Profit and Sustainability Rules.

Sir Jim Ratcliffe, Manchester United’s new part-owner, has appointed the corporate restructuring and insolvency firm Interpath Advisory to make significant job cuts at the club

United’s financial results for the second quarter of 2023/24 released on Tuesday showed that staff costs had risen to £95.1million over that period compared to £77.3m last season, an outlay which Ratcliffe believes is holding back Erik Ten Hag‘s side. 

As exclusively revealed by Mail Sport on Wednesday, the review by Interpath began earlier this month.

While United do not have a fixed target for savings the review is expected to lead to a reduction of the club’s staffing levels of between 20 and 25 per cent, which in practical terms means hundreds of jobs, a plan first revealed by Mail Sport last December.