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A leading businesswoman married to the Minister of Police, Chris Philpwas reported to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) by a former employer and tried in the High Court on charges of corporate espionage.
Elizabeth Philp, 40, whose husband called for “zero tolerance” for all crime, has been charged with data offenses and unlawfully using confidential information from her former employer to set up a competing business.
She denies the allegations and is suing her former employer, whom she accuses of cyberattacking the website of the company she later founded.
The legal battle centers around Philp leaving London Specialist Pharmacy Group (LSPG), where she was chief executive until 2017, and setting up her own company, Roseway Labs.
Her former employer accused her of keeping and keeping “trade secrets” on a Dell XPS laptop that were not deleted before she left the company.
It is also alleged that, along with three other former employees of London Specialist Pharmacy, Philp conspired to seize customer lists of her former employer for their new firm, resulting in losses of approximately £1.5m.
In Philp’s defense and counterclaim, she denies the allegations and claims the delay in performing a factory reset on her laptop was a result of her being “fully engaged in supporting her husband’s campaign as part of the June 8, 2017 General Election d.”
“As far as I can remember, [Elizabeth Philp] did not have access to the laptop at any time after her termination of employment for the plaintiffs prior to performing the factory reset,” the defense says.
The LSPG also detailed a number of instances where Philp’s alleged co-conspirators allegedly downloaded confidential information or sent it to private email addresses.
The response claimed that the information was not confidential and was sent as part of the normal course of business. The General Pharmaceutical Council dismissed a complaint in October last year relating to one of the staff.
The claimants, Gluck Health Limited and its subsidiary, London Specialist Pharmacy, are seeking the return of a £10,000 termination payment given to Philp, along with hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages.
In a letter to the CPS, lawyers acting for London Specialist Pharmacy also alleged that Philp and the other former employees had committed offenses under section 170 of the Data Protection Act 2018.
Phil said she was not contacted by CPS or the police. She now describes herself as the co-founder and CEO of Roseway Labs, a pharmacy founded in 2018 to work with private doctors to offer personalized medicine.
The company provides medicines for health problems such as hair loss, skin problems and hormonal imbalances – a sector in which LSPG claimed to have a “near monopoly” before Roseway was founded.
The lawsuit is the latest twist in a bitter rivalry between Dr. Marion Gluck, 74, who founded Gluck Health Limited, and Philp’s company.
Gluck, who is considered a pioneer in the treatment of hormone imbalances, was suspended from medical practice for four months in September after it was found that she had accessed restricted parts of Roseway’s website after stealing login details.
The data breach was discovered and reported by Philp in 2022. Gluck denied having personal access to the details, but she admitted she “facilitated” the use of the login address for her staff, claiming it was to study the website’s format on Roseway. Roseway’s lawyers are now seeking damages.
Philp said: “Roseway Labs was the victim of a deliberate and sustained cyber attack by Specialist Pharmacy, who only brought charges against Roseway Labs after it became clear that their activities had been exposed.
“That was four years after Roseway Labs started trading. Nothing of substance has been raised. Roseway Labs reported the attack to the Information Commissioner’s Office, which suggested we report it to the police under the Computer Misuse Act.
“We chose not to at the time and instead reported it to the relevant regulators. At no time have Roseway Labs received any contact from the police or the Crown Prosecution Service and [Roseway Labs] has committed no offence.”
Philp’s husband will be re-elected MP for Croydon South. This February, he called for a significant increase in the number of arrests, arguing that there is no such thing as petty crime.
“I want to see zero tolerance for all crime by the police and a back-to-basics approach that significantly increases the number of criminals caught and prosecuted,” he said.
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