A former Computacenter employee, James Papa, filed a lawsuit against his former company, Deutsche Bank, and his former supervisor for $25 million alleging he was terminated in retaliation for whistleblowing about a security breach, which was purportedly caused by a colleague’s girlfriend gaining unauthorized access to confidential client information.
According to Papa’s complaint, the girlfriend gained access to hundreds of thousands of Deutsche Bank clients’ private banking information including millions of private banking transactions. The girlfriend was alleged by Papa to be a Chinese citizen with “significant computer expertise.”
As an information technology employee at Computacenter, Papa was responsible for overseeing Computacenter employees working in the Deutsche tech rooms. According to Papa, while he was working his former job, he discovered that a colleague of his gave tech room access to his girlfriend even after being told that he cannot do so by Papa.
“CC (Computacenter) and DB (Deutsche Bank) were immediately aware that this significant security breach was required to be disclosed to the [SEC] due to DB’s status as a public corporation subject to SEC regulation,” the complaint reads. “Public disclosure of the security breach at headquarters would likely endanger CC’s multi-million-dollar contract with DB and significantly damage its corporate reputation as a company responsible for computer system security for major financial institutions and Fortune 500 corporations.”
Papa said that immediately informed his employee of the alleged wrongful access as well a Deutsche Bank vice president Marc Senatore. Papa argued that Senatore as well as his supervisors should have reported the incident to the Securities and Exchange Commission. However, according to Papa, his whistleblower complaint was immediately ignored as a means to protect Computacenter and its $50 million dollar deal with the Bank. As a result, Computacenter terminated Papa on July 31st, 2023.
Papa’s lawsuit requests of $25 million results from his request of punitive, compensatory and additional damages. Specifically, Papa alleges that both Computacenter and Deutsche Bank engaged in negligence, tortious interference, and other violations of New York Labor Law. 
Jacob Horowitz is a contributing editor at Compliance Chief 360°