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Sharing Rockstar emails on Discord was `egregious breach´ of policy - tribunal

A group of former employees of Rockstar North are claiming they were unfairly dismissed for trade union activities.

A former Rockstar Games employee committed an “egregious breach” of company policy when they posted emails from management in a Discord channel, a tribunal has heard.

A lawyer representing the games company said it took a “strict line” on information security, and that managers would have “gone ballistic” if the possibility of sharing the emails on the platform had been suggested to them.

Some 34 people are believed to have been dismissed from Rockstar in October last year across the UK and Canada over what the company described as “the sharing of confidential company information”.

Twenty three of them are currently taking part in a employment tribunal, claiming they were unfairly dismissed for trade union activities.

They are being represented by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB).

Rockstar has said it will vigorously contest the tribunal and accused the former employees of breaching the company’s confidentiality rules by discussing sensitive information on a Discord server.

On Monday, former employee Dayne Oram, who was one of those who lost their job, continued giving evidence to the tribunal in Glasgow.

They were asked about two emails from a senior manager they posted on the Discord server in October last year.

The emails, which were sent by the company’s vice president of HR, Rob Spampinato, concerned guidelines for the use of Slack channels at the company.

Thomas Cordrey, representing Rockstar, put it to Mx Oram that posting the full text of the emails in a Discord group with some 350 members including 10 employees who no longer worked at the company had breached the company’s information-handling policies.

These stipulate, he said, that “internal information” should not be shared externally without management sign-off, and that it should only be stored on “systems approved by security and legal departments”.

“Your breach of this policy was an egregious act of gross misconduct,” Mr Cordrey told the witness.

Mx Oram disputed this, saying the emails from Mr Spampinato had been sent to all staff at the company, and that they had been unaware at the time that some of those in the Discord group no longer worked at Rockstar.

They also said it was “difficult to reconcile” the company’s information-handling policy with rights of staff to union participation, and that sharing the letters in Discord had been necessary for union activities.

Mr Cordrey told the tribunal the use of a Discord group where security was “seriously lacking” had increased the risk of phishing attacks on the company.

He said the firm had been targeted by such an attack in 2022, which resulted in video from an early version of Grand Theft Auto VI which is due for release later this year being shared online.

Pre-orders of the next instalment in the company’s best-selling franchise are already thought to be worth hundreds of millions.

“Rockstar’s concerns are not hypothetical. There have been materially damaging attacks based on employees being tricked through phishing attacks,” Mr Cordrey said.

He went on: “If you were a hacker who wanted to trick Rockstar employees, it would be gold dust to have two emails showing exactly how Mr Spampinato communicates, and would make it much easier to trick employees (into sharing confidential information).”

Mr Cordrey also pointed to concerns raised by some in the group about the sharing of this kind of internal information, saying this indicated staff had been aware doing so had breached company policy.

Mx Oram replied that there had been a “culture of fear” at Rockstar, which they said made some staff overly cautious.

Lawyers for the claimants are expected to allege that workers were unlawfully blacklisted and targeted for their union activities.

Rockstar Games has said the workers were dismissed for “gross misconduct” following the sharing of confidential information, rather than trade union activity.

A spokesperson for Rockstar Games said: “Rockstar Games’ position has been clear and consistent throughout.

“Individuals across the UK and Canada were dismissed for gross misconduct following the sharing of confidential company information, not because of alleged trade union membership or activity.

“We reject the claims and will defend them vigorously before the tribunal.”