Irresponsible PGS ASA Refuses to Acknowledge Receipt of Subject Access Request

to:	GDPR <[email protected]>, John Francas <[email protected]>, [email protected]
cc:	[email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]
date:	Apr 22, 2020, 4:59 PM
subject:	Fwd: GDPR 2020 Subject Access Request

RE: Steven D. Kalavity

       GDPR

PGS GDPR DPO,

I submitted a subject access request 15 April 2020 that has not been acknowledged.

Could PGS ASA please acknowledge?

I would like to reference the Response to Access Request Dated 11 June 2018 (the “Access Request”) dated 16 July 2018 and signed by John Francas, Head of Legal, UK, Africa, and Middle East for PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (the “Fraudulent Letter”)

It seems that PGS intentionally provided material misrepresentations and also withheld material information from the data subject in this Fraudulent Letter.  Please clarify if the data subject has misinterpreted the Fraudulent Letter.

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The Fraudulent Letter states:

You should also note that under the terms of the settlement agreement between you and PGS dated 5 December 2013 (the “Settlement Agreement”) you agreed not to further pursue your grievance or any analogous or substantially similar or other grievance against PGS and that PGS, nor any other company in the PGS group, shall have any further obligation to you in respect to such grievances.

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The majority of my online publications do not repeat the issues of the 20 September 2013 grievance (the “grievance”) which is referenced in the Settlement Agreement. I would appreciate it if PGS ASA would specifically reference the contents of the grievance, to avoid ambiguity, since the grievance is quite long.  However, as PGS ASA can reference from the copy of the grievance being processed by PGS, the Form of Grievance introduction states:

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In response to the fore-mentioned meeting and the Investigation for Possible Implementation of a Performance Improvement Plan, I am initiating the grievance procedure due to my belief that PGS Contract Sales – Africa has breached in practice and principle UK labor laws, PGS Core Values, PGS UK Personnel Handbook practices, as well as established best practices as presented through PGS contracted training and development courses.

It is my contention that Contract Sales – Africa work environment is unsafe/unhealthy.

Further, the Contract Sales – Africa Manager has breached his trust and authority through exercising negative behaviors consistent with workplace bullying, harassment, discrimination, defamation and negligence.

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The topic of most of my online publications have been in regard to the documents and processes which supported and led to my signing the Settlement Agreement.  The grievance presented to PGS ASA executive management was protected disclosures, or whistleblowing, according to the UK Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA):     

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PIDA

Part IV A Protected disclosures

43A Meaning of “protected disclosure”.

In this Act a “protected disclosure” means a qualifying disclosure (as defined by section 43B) which is made by a worker in accordance with any of sections 43C to 43H.

43B Disclosures qualifying for protection.

(1) In this Part a “qualifying disclosure” means any disclosure of information which, in the reasonable belief of the worker making the disclosure, tends to show one or more of the following—

(a)that a criminal offence has been committed, is being committed or is likely to be committed,

(b)that a person has failed, is failing or is likely to fail to comply with any legal obligation to which he is subject,

(c)that a miscarriage of justice has occurred, is occurring or is likely to occur,

(d)that the health or safety of any individual has been, is being or is likely to be endangered,

(e)that the environment has been, is being or is likely to be damaged, or

(f)that information tending to show any matter falling within any one of the preceding paragraphs has been, is being or is likely to be deliberately concealed.

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In October 2014, I submitted a subject access request (the “2014 SAR”) so that I could obtain the personal data that PGS was processing in my name.  Firm copies of e-mail records and the contents of my PGS professional personnel file (“personnel file”) was mailed from Weybridge, England to my residence (at the time) in Houston, Texas, USA. 

It was immediately recognized by me, the data subject, that several of the documents within the personnel file being processed are defamatory forgeries that are not legally verifiable.  No one can verify them as authentic, because the documents are not signed by the data subject nor supported by accompanying documentation evidence.  (I challenge PGS data processor, John Francas, a lawyer, to authenticate to the standard required by a court of law (England) the documents that were delivered to me.  Also, the dates on the documents indicate that they were processed to support the Settlement Agreement.  In other words, illegal documents were used to process the Settlement Agreement.  This revelation of more (alleged) criminal activity has been the topic of most of the queries e-mailed to PGS agents and content which I have published online.  This content is also protected disclosure, but not the same protected disclosure that was revealed within the grievance.

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PGS references the 2014 SAR within the Fraudulent Letter:

We [PGS] have determined that applicable law allows us to deny your request on the basis that processing of your personal data, if any, that may have occurred since your previous request on 10 October 2014 (the “2014 SAR”) would have only been performed in order to seek privileged legal advice in respect to your various direct and indirect communication with or about PGS and/or its employees. Accordingly, we are denying your request under the Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 2, paragraph 19(a).

In any event, we consider your request manifestly unfounded or excessive under GDPR Article 12(5)(b). In particular they are repetitive given the 2014 SAR and subsequent persistent requests in email correspondence in December 2014 and repeated requests in June 2018 in the days following the Access Request. It is our view that PGS provided you with a substantive response and documents in respect to the 2014 SAR.

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It should be emphasized, again, that my repeated requests are a derivative of PGS ignoring my direct or indirect communications with or about PGS and/or its employees.  PGS has had multiple opportunities to answer simple questions, but irresponsibly refuse to do so, as with the Fraudulent Letter that answers nothing and instead makes continued online publications and queries inevitable.

Of course, PGS is aware that I rejected their citing Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 2, paragraph 19(a) as a reason for denying a responsible response to my several queries stemming from the 2014 SAR response.  If PGS actually read and acknowledged the contents of my online publications, PGS would understand that I believe that PGS continues to utter forged defamatory documents (criminal behavior) as my personal data. 

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Data Protection Act 2018, Schedule 2, paragraph 19(a) – Legal Professional Privilege

19 The listed GDPR provisions do not apply to personal data that consists of –

Information in respect of which a claim to legal professional privilege or, in Scotland, confidentiality of communications, could be maintained in legal proceedings.

One of the exceptions to the attorney-client privilege is the crime-fraud exception.  This exception applies when communications are made in the furtherance of a crime or fraud.  In other words, the attorney-client privilege is not a shield to be used by either the attorney or the client to pursue or cover up criminal activity, including acts contributing to the obstruction or perversion of justice.

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With regard to the 2014 SAR, during November – December 2014, following the receipt of the data received from PGS, I wrote several e-mails stating my concerns about the integrity of the data that PGS processed in my name.  On 22 December 2014, PGS sent a response letter to me by post and e-mail (the “Extortion Letter”):

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Data Processing Queries – PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (the “Company”)

I am writing further your e-mail correspondence of 5, 6, and 20 December 2014.

Please be aware that, to the extent that your queries and comments relate to issues which were not raised in your grievance of 20 September 2013, the Company is willing to take reasonable and proportionate steps to accommodate your requests.

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Instead, a copy of your email of 5 December has been placed on your personnel file (and is held also in our email and document database), and the points you have raised about the data we hold are accordingly held together with your other personal data. We regard this as a satisfactory and proportionate approach to our obligation to ensure that personal data held about you is accurate.

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The only point which we think might possibly not be clear from that material would be the identities of those who have had access to your hard copy personnel file. The people who have had access to the hard copy personnel file (a copy of which was provided to you) are myself, Laura Haswell, Gareth Jones, Anna Stokle and Simon Cather, all in our capacities as your management and HR employees of the Company.

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You should also be aware that, to the extent the Company incurs losses by reason of further breaches of your agreement not to pursue matters raised in that grievance, its rights are reserved to (among other remedies) bring damages claims against you for breach of contract in respect of those losses.

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The Extortion Letter similarly misrepresented my concerns with the content received from the 2014 SAR as relating to the issues raised within the grievance.  I was now raising issues with how the grievance was settled.  The grievance itself claimed that PGS ASA was breaking the law and in breach of employment contract and PGS (UK) policy, which was whistleblowing.  Upon receiving the copies of data being processed in my name by PGS, I now believed that defamatory forged documents were illegally used to process the Settlement Agreement.  PGS stating that they would process the Dispute E-mail “as a satisfactory and proportionate approach to our obligation to ensure that personal data held about you is accurate” is acknowledging that inaccurate data was processed to support the Settlement Agreement.  However, I did not regard that simply processing correct data after weaponized fraudulent data was used to affect a termination under false pretenses was a proportionate remedy.  Not only did PGS process inaccurate (defamatory) data, but so did all the lawyers involved in using the inaccurate data.  This implied a criminal conspiracy to defraud a whistleblower and terminate him illegally with a fraudulent Settlement Agreement.  PGS’ solution was neither acceptable nor proportionate to the data subject and victim of crimes! 

I did not come to these conclusions immediately after receiving the 2014 SAR response contents.  However, I did immediately believe that PGS was in breach of the Settlement Agreement.  However, I hadn’t yet imagined the broader conspiracy and what it implied.  The binding nature of settlement agreements made legal redress problematic.  On 3 July 2015, I published on the LinkedIn™ Pulse platform, An American, the UK Data Protection Act, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) and the Tyranny of “Accurate Data”.  PGS never invoked the Confidentiality clauses within the Settlement Agreement prohibiting the publication of disparaging content.  I believed that this was protected public disclosure.  On 24 August 2015, I submitted a report to UK ActionFraud (police).  I continued to publish on the LinkedIn™ Pulse platform.  On 6 September 2015, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) CEO Jon Erik Reinhardsen Should Resign was published on the LinkedIn™ Pulse platform, followed on 20 September 2015 with, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) CEO Jon Erik Reinhardsen Should Resign II, that actually presented documented evidence that PGS was uttering forged documents as my personal data.  (These articles now are published on marineseismicsurvey.com.)  Again, PGS didn’t invoke the Confidentiality clauses of disparaging content which I was trying to provoke.  In October 2015, I moved from the USA to Thailand.

I continued to publish protected disclosure on the LinkedIn™ Pulse platform.  On 20 April 2016, I submitted another SAR (the “2016 SAR”) to the PGS Compliance Hotline composed of PGS General Counsel, Rune Olav Pedersen; PGS Senior Vice President Global Human Resources, Terje Bjølseth; and Vice President Compliance and Internal Audit, Silke Hitschkes.  My intentions for notifying the PGS Compliance Hotline were to formally present my concerns regarding the integrity of the data PGS was processing in my name so that it would be processed, but also to provoke a response to my publications on the LinkedIn™ Pulse platform.  I especially wanted PGS compliance comment confirm the contents published within the 20 September 2015 article where evidence to support my allegations was presented.  PGS issued the following statement on 20 May 2016:

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Mr. Kalavity

PGS has followed up your complaint through the Compliance Hotline in accordance with our procedures.  No deviations from PGS’ procedures or guidelines were uncovered and none of the documents placed in your employee folder was found to contain false or misleading information about you.  No evidence found indicate that you were defrauded.  The case dealing with your complaint is hereby closed.

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PGS provided no evidence nor an investigation report to back-up this ridiculous statement.  PGS also did not reference nor comment on any of the content posted on the LinkedIn™ Pulse platform, the Extortion Letter, nor referenced the Dispute E-mail.  On 24 May 2016, I published a response to the PGS Hotline in the form of a blog post, The Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) Ambush Meeting and the Definition of Fraud.  The title accuses PGS of criminal behavior.  PGS refused to address simple concerns and questions.  I continued to post articles on the LinkedIn™ Pulse platform, post queries in the PGS’ LinkedIn™comment space, as well as send e-mails to PGS Compliance Team members.  In August 2016, I was restricted from LinkedIn™.  PGS had complained that I defamed them.  PGS irresponsible misrepresentation of protected disclosure with defamation.  PGS never invoked the contractual non-disparagement clauses of the Settlement Agreement.  I always considered my published content as protected public disclosure and rejected PGS’ claim that the publications were “defamation.”  Further, many of the publications are identified as “whistleblowing.”  Regardless, in-house counsel for a company should understand what is legally considered protected public disclosure.  The Settlement Agreement is governed by the laws of England, hence PIDA is referenced. 

Copies of the e-mails sent to PGS Compliance Hotline from April – September 2016 were intentionally provided to PGS with the 2018 SAR.  The Fraudulent Letter intentionally omits reference to 2016 SAR. Retaliating against whistleblowing, most notably through acts contributing to the obstruction or perversion of justice, is what PGS has done consistently since forming the Settlement Agreement.  There was something even more sinister and egregious withheld from the PGS’ 2018 SAR response.  On 13 September 2018, PGS delivered a court summons for a criminal defamation claim while I was traveling outside Thailand to/in the USA.  The summons was in the Thai language.  The summons was to address a criminal defamation complaint.  PGS had never once commented on any content that I had published prior Thai law firm, Duensing – Kippen delivering the summons on behalf of PGS.  Duensing – Kippen delivered the firm copies of the summons and claims to the address of my wife and family where I stayed.  I never had provided either my e-mail address or physical address to Duensing – Kippen.  I had to rush back to Thailand and see what was distressing my family.  PGS violated GDPR and transferred my personal data outside the EEA to Thailand law firm Duensing – Kippen without my consent.  This included a copy of my USA passport, which is also a crime under USA Federal law. 

My personal data had been provided to PGS for the explicit purpose of identification to process the 2018 SAR.  The claim was prepared by PGS 10 July 2018.  The 2018 SAR response is dated 16 July 2018.  PGS had acknowledged receipt of the 2018 SAR on 18 June 2018.  PGS had already processed my personal data, likely illegally, and did not disclose this within their 2018 SAR response.  Further, PGS illegally stalked my travels using the illegally obtained personal data. PGS illegally provided my USA passport data to Duensing – Kippen, who also illegally copied my USA passport without my consent to advance a fraud.  The summons was received by me in the USA, which again is USA Federal Wire Fraud.  I am also convinced this entire organized crime enterprise facilitated by PGS violates the USA Racketeering Influence and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO), and will advance this to the extent which I am capable.  PGS has perverted the course of justice through denying me due process facilitated through the bribery of corrupt lawyers.  When I returned to Thailand, I had to confront these allegations with very little time to consider and prepare.  Nevertheless, I e-mailed several e-mails to PGS asking so many questions.  Many of these e-mails were written from the USA, as well. 

I want PGS to stop their perverting the course of justice and finally address the issues and questions which have been asked since the fraud initiated whilst in Weybridge, England June 2013.  I am demanding that PGS provide me with the purported Thailand arrest warrants that they sponsored through Duensing – Kippen.  I also want all of the original data supporting the claims processed in England prior to their translation into the Thai language.  There is no way that PGS could process a legal claim of defamation without authenticating the data and processes that created the contents of my professional personnel file.  Also, any legal claim would need to be composed of the full-body of publications that were published when the claim was formed, including articles that had been delivered to PGS Compliance from April – September 2016.  Finally, most of my publications were published on nopgs.com.  This site was taken down in December 2018 and evidence destroyed while Kingdom of Thailand and USA Federal litigation was pending, per the signed 11 November 2018 Duensing – Kippen agreement.  PGS and Duensing – Kippen need to explain what happened to nopgs.com?

Regards,

SDK