Former employee accused of sending scathing Slater + Gordon email

Law firm Slater + Gordon has referred a former employee to police who it suspects is behind “malicious emails” sent to more than 900 staff in a “premeditated and carefully planned attack”.

Law firm Slater + Gordon has referred a former employee to police who it suspects is behind “malicious emails” sent to more than 900 staff.

In a statement on Tuesday, the Melbourne-based compensation firm said it had concluded a forensic internal investigation and found a former employee, who was aware of security protocols and previously had access to certain data, may have sent the email.

The firm described the scandal as a “premeditated and carefully planned attack” and more than 10 emails had been sent in batches in an apparent attempt to circumvent email protocols.

It said its IT team and certain senior executives were also deliberately excluded from the recipient list.

A former Slater + Gordon employee has been referred to police after “malicious emails” were sent to staff. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

“This matter continues to be taken extremely seriously by Slater and Gordon, and we have referred the outcomes of the forensic investigation to Victoria Police. We will continue to assist the police with their work,” CEO Dina Tutungi said.

“While this malicious incident was unwelcome, our priority remains our people and the critical work we do every day to provide access to justice for our clients.”

Slater + Gordon reiterated that it did not believe former Chief People Officer Mari Ruiz-Matthyssen, whose name was attached to the explosive email, was responsible.

Ms Ruiz-Matthyssen has strenuously denied she authored the missive which was laced with disparaging remarks about individual employees and included confidential salary data.

On Tuesday, the firm said the salary data appeared to have been taken from at least three different internal source documents, which were combined and altered.

It added there was no evidence to suggest that any current employee, contractor, or external threat actor was involved and no client information was compromised.

The all-staff email was sent on February 21 and sent shockwaves through the firm.

The email included a dot-pointed “rundown” of employees, labelling some individuals as “lazy”, “useless” and “bit of a gossip”.

In a statement, Victoria Police said its cybercrime detectives were “continuing to assess the limited information provided by the complainant regarding this matter”.

“As the matter is ongoing, we are not in a position to comment further at this time,” it said.