How Anton Piller Orders Rescue Your Data Before It Disappears

By Jodi Poswelletski | Director

Imagine discovering that an ex-employee has copied your client database and is already trading on it. In minutes they can encrypt, delete or dump that data offshore. Under POPIA your company now faces fines of up to R10 million, possible jail exposure for directors, and reputational ruin.

No matter how meticulously Confidentiality Provisions in contracts of employment may be drafted they are important in protecting such confidential or proprietary information once it has been appropriated by an erstwhile employee.

When time, evidence and trust are evaporating simultaneously, the legal system does have an emergency lever: the Anton Piller order.

1. What an Anton Piller order really is

An Anton Piller order is a powerful legal remedy that permits a party to search another party’s premises and seize evidence without prior notice. This measure is employed to prevent the destruction or concealment of crucial evidence before it can be used in legal proceedings. Cillier AJ stated in: Roamer Watch Co SA and another v African Textile Distributors  also t/a M K Patel Wholesale Merchants  and Direct Importers 1980 (2) SA 254(W)(“Roamer Watch case”) that this type of relief is aimed at the preservation of evidence and a plaintiff obtaining such an ex parte order should not be given relief beyond that which is necessary to preserve the evidence relevant to the case.

In the case of Universal Studios Inc v Network Video (Pty) Ltd 1986 (2) SA 734 A, reference was made to the fact that remedies devised in the Anton Piller Roamer Watch case and other subsequent cases for the preservation of evidence, are essentially modern legal remedies devised to cater for modern problems in the prosecution of commercial suits.

Judge Harms said it best when it comes to the granting of Anton Pillars in the case of The Shoba v officer commanding, Temporary Police Camp , Wagendrift Dam and another; Maphanga v officer commanding, South African Police Murder and Robbery Unit, Pietermaritzburg and others 1995(4) SA 1 (A) (“Shoba).

“The court has a discretion whether or not to grant an Anton Pillar order and if it does, it can do so on certain terms. In exercising its discretion, the court will have regard to the cogency of the case made out by the applicant and with reference to the requisites for the order, must weigh the potential harm that will be suffered by the Respondent if the order is granted, against the potential harm to the Applicant if the relief is withheld. The order granted should not be more onerous than is necessary to protect the Applicant’s interests”.

An Anton Piller is an ex parte application (held in camera) brought to court to obtain immediate relief for search-and-seize warrant issued in civil proceedings. The applicant must show:

1. a prima facie cause of action;
2. the respondent holds specific, vital evidence;
3. a real, well-founded fear that the evidence will be hidden or destroyed before trial. Shoba emphasises that an Applicant must show that evidence is “essential” or absolutely necessary for him to prove his claim and that non-availability of such evidence at trial would result in the defeat of administration of justice, too stringent a test.

Courts treat the remedy as “drastic” because it conflicts with constitutional privacy rights. That is why the burden of proof is substantial and why execution thereof is supervised by an independent attorney so as to safeguard the rights of the Respondent and ensure that the order is complied with.

2. Why Anton Piller matters specifically for data privacy

Data differs from counterfeit sneakers or pilfered prototypes – it’s weightless and wipeable. One command can obliterate an SQL table, purge a Dropbox, or auto-destruct a chat history. South African judges have acknowledged that evidence may be hidden or destroyed… by the time the case comes to trial.

Experian 2020 breach, is the cautionary case study of experiencing a data breach of personal information of 24 million people and 793 749 business entities. The credit bureau had to obtain an Anton Piller order to seize the hacker’s devices after the initial compromise. The longer an organisation hesitates, the colder the trail grows and the sharper POPIA liabilities become.

3. POPIA + Anton Piller: two halves of the same shield

POPIA obliges responsible parties to prevent unlawful access to personal information and notify the Information Regulator if a data breach occurs. An Anton Piller order is the litigation tool that lets you prove compliance efforts and contains damages by forcibly securing evidence before it vanishes. Legal commentators now regard the remedy as an “essential extension” of POPIA’s security obligations.

4. Common pain points we see in practice

Pain point	Consequence	How an Anton Piller order helps
Departing staff copying trade secrets or customer lists,	Hard to detect until revenue bleed is felt; proof disappears quickly	Order can target laptops, phones, cloud credentials before deletion
Confidential information of the company that if used could be extremely advantageous to a competitor   Third-party service providers holding your data hostage	Business continuity risk, regulatory breach threat	Sheriff can seize servers / backups, preserving evidence for relief
Ransomware actors threatening to leak data	Enormous POPIA penalties, reputational crisis	Rapid seizure of compromised devices can assist forensic tracing
Internal sabotage – silent data deletion	Audit trails wiped, no discovery material left	Court-authorised imaging of drives before logs are scrubbed

5. The takeaway

When data is the lifeblood of your business, waiting for ordinary discovery is a luxury you can’t afford. Anton Piller orders seize evidence today so you can litigate tomorrow.