Former bookkeeper loses her unfair dismissal case against hedgie tycoon
HEDGE fund tycoon Elena Ambrosiadou has won an unfair dismissal claim brought by her former bookkeeper in the latest twist in a scandal over alleged snooping on former employees of hedge fund Ikos.
Nathalie Pratico, the ex-bookkeeper, had filed a claim for €5m (£4.4m), alleging she was fired from Ambrosiadou’s family accounting firm after being wrongly accused of passing confidential Ikos data to Ambrosiadou’s former husband Martin Coward.
But a Monaco court rejected all her claims and said certain evidence suggested Pratico may have sent Coward the stolen information.
Ikos co-founders Ambrosiadou and Coward split acrimoniously in 2009 and Coward left the firm but has since been accused of paying Ikos employees for confidential information to help him set up a rival fund in Monaco.
Former Ikos staff have however claimed that Ambrosiadou masterminded a large scale surveillance operation against them to gain information for use in legal proceedings.
In May, the UK High Court ruled that Ambrosiadou had hired a spy to watch former Ikos fund manager Tobin Gover.
Pratico’s lawsuit alleged Ambrosiadou had caused her “psychological harm” after conducting a “true campaign of harassment” against her that saw her spied on and repeatedly served with demands for information.
A criminal investigation into theft of data from Ikos is under way.