THE ROYAL Court has criticised how the government handled a major data disclosure exercise involving sanctioned Russian businessman Roman Abramovich — and ordered officials to justify their approach under oath.
In a judgment handed down this week, the Master of the Royal Court, Advocate David Cadin, refused an application by Mr Abramovich to force the government to redo part of the disclosure.
But the ruling raised serious concerns about how the data exercise was carried out, including “maximalist” and “unnecessary” redactions and millions of “irrelevant” documents.
The case centres on Mr Abramovich’s attempt to access personal data held about him under Jersey’s data protection law.
The Chief Minister, the Treasury Minister, the Economic Development Minister, the External Relations Minister, the States of Jersey Police chief and the Comptroller of Revenue are named as defendants.
It comes after the Government of Jersey froze over $7 billion in assets linked to Mr Abramovich, following his sanctioning in April 2022.
Mr Abramovich has since accused the government of “conspiracy” and “unlawful overreach” regarding the freezing of funds, including allegations of deleted data.
The latest court judgment has revealed “plain and obvious issues” about how the data exercise was carried out – including an “enormous amount of non-responsive data”.
The judgment highlighted “8.8 million documents of which over 99% are irrelevant and do not contain personal data” of Mr Abramovich.
Advocate Cadin said the figures were “self-evident” of a problem, adding: “These numbers will require explanation.”
He warned they could indicate “missteps” in how the exercise had been conducted – including “a lack of focus in the searches that were carried out” or that officials were “looking in the wrong place for personal data”.
The court warned there appeared to be “a reluctance on the part of the Government of Jersey defendants to engage with those issues”, but stopped short of ordering the work to be redone immediately – as requested by Mr Abramovich.
It has instead ordered the government to provide a detailed explanation of how such a vast volume of irrelevant material was processed and whether errors were made by 12 June.
Government officials have also been ordered to formally verify under oath that all of Mr Abramovich’s personal data has been properly identified and disclosed.
The judgment also criticised the way documents were redacted by the government before being handed over.
The court found that the approach taken was at the “maximalist end of the scale”, meaning anything not strictly personal data was removed – sometimes leaving documents virtually unreadable.
In one example cited by the court, an entire document was blacked out except for just 19 words, with even basic information like the email header removed.
Such an approach, said Advocate Cadin, risked defeating the purpose of data rights.
Referring to earlier legal guidance, he stressed that individuals must be given information in a way that allows them to properly understand how their data has been used – not in “decontextualised snippets” stripped of meaning.
The court invited the government to reconsider the redactions and potentially release less heavily edited versions of documents before the next tranche of data disclosures.
Mr Abramovich’s legal team raised concerns about missing documents, limited searches of ministers’ mobile phones, and the refusal to use more advanced technology such as AI tools.
The court acknowledged these issues but said it was “premature” to determine them at this stage, making no orders and noting it had “no evidence before” it to justify further intervention.
A four-week trial – expected to take place in 2027 – will ultimately decide whether the government complied with data protection law.
