Ex-Jones Day partner told to pay £635k over instruction to ‘burn’ app

A former Jones Day partner has been spared jail but fined £25,000 for telling a client to “burn” a secure communications system in order to avoid handing evidence to grocer Ocado.

Raymond McKeeve was also told to pay £610,000 in legal costs after being found in contempt of court for conduct Mr Justice Adam Johnson called a “spontaneous act of colossal stupidity”.

McKeeve was found in contempt of court in August for intentionally thwarting a search of electronic data at a company founded by one of Ocado’s co-founders, despite an order to preserve evidence as part of a corporate espionage probe.

In his ruling on Wednesday, Johnson said McKeeve had acted “impulsively and stupidly and out of a sense of personal embarrassment” but not “as part of some pre-arranged plan”. Handing down his ruling, Johnson said it was “plainly a serious matter” but not serious enough “to warrant a custodial sentence”.

He said the former Jones Day lawyer had done “exactly the opposite of what his role and his professional duties required”.

McKeeve was advising Today Development Partners, which was set up by Ocado co-founder Jonathan Faiman. Ocado had accused Faiman of a conspiracy to misappropriate and misuse its confidential information along with another former Ocado employee, Jon Hillary, in a legal dispute that was settled last year.

Ocado alleged Hillary had stolen corporate information, and it obtained a search order against both men in 2019.

Faiman had filed a counterclaim against Ocado, describing claims of corporate espionage as “ludicrous” and alleging that the search warrant against him and Hillary was wrongly obtained. Faiman withdrew the action last year.

McKeeve contacted TDP’s IT manager following the search order and told him to “burn” a private communications app used by Faiman, Hillary, McKeeve and others — a message the lawyer later confessed to sending.

Johnson said McKeeve had “interfered with the due administration of justice” in his August ruling.

In court filings, McKeeve admitted to sending the instruction to destroy the app but said he had done it to protect his wife, Belinda de Lucy, who was a former MEP for the Brexit party. TDP had been using her name as a pseudonym for Hillary, who was on gardening leave from Ocado and using the private communications system to speak to TDP, according to filings from both parties.

The £610,000 in legal costs McKeeve must pay may increase to up to £760,000 when the final legal bill is agreed.

In a statement Ocado said it “was important to Ocado to bring Mr McKeeve’s conduct to the court’s attention as the entire system of search orders would collapse if solicitors were able to obstruct them or interfere with them, with impunity . . . We welcome the court’s decision today and it further vindicates Ocado’s decision to bring the proceedings.”

Jones Day and McKeeve did not respond to requests for comment.

Ocado failed in a first application to commit McKeeve for contempt of court at the High Court in 2020. But the Court of Appeal overturned that decision last year and allowed the case to proceed.