Letter to Gareth Jones, PGS Exploration UK Ltd. Human Resources Manager  ICO Caseworkers

ATTN:    Gareth Jones, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (PGSUK) Human Resources Manager and UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) Caseworker(s)

CC:    Daphne Bjerke, Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS) Data Protection Officer

John Francas, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (PGSUK) Head of Legal

Lars Mysen, Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS) General Counsel

Rune Olav Pedersen, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (PGSUK) Director

Gottfred Langseth, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (PGSUK) Director

Christin Steen-Nilson, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited (PGSUK) Director (no e-mail)

The preamble to Letter to Daphne Bjerke, Petroleum Geo-Services ASA (PGS) DPO and UK ICO Caseworkers that was e-mailed on 2-Sep-2018.  requested the courtesy of an acknowledgement of receipt.  The data controller, PGS Exploration (UK) Limited.  The Heights, Brooklands, Weybridge, England, KT13 0NY [PGSUK] was requested to respond within 30 days following the receipt of the 2-Sep-2018 letter.  PGSUK is the UK affiliate of Norwegian based Petroleum .Geo-Services ASA (PGS).  Daphne Bjerke is the Data Protection Officer (DPO) for PGS,  I had submitted a subject access request (SAR) to DPO Bjerke citing the new General Data Protection Requirement (GDPR).  GDPR came into full affect 25 May 2018.  The unsatisfactory response to this SAR  was sent on behalf of PGSUK from PGSUK Head of Legal, John Francas.  I have remained dissatisfied with the responses from PGS and PGSUK,  The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) caseworkers, who oversee GDPR compliance, stated that I had to inform PGS / PGSUK that I was dissatisfied with the initial response and provide an additional 30-days for PGS / PGSUK to address the concerns raised before ICO could intervene.  This is where we are now – waiting.  However, PGSUK still has not acknowledged even the receipt of the letter written to Bjerke, much less provided any substantive response to my many queries and concerns about how PGSUK is processing personal data.  PGS / PGSUK ignoring my concerns has been very damaging to me professionally, psychologically, physically, and financially.  The data which PGS / PGSUK is processing within my PGSUK professional personnel file is knowingly inaccurate and defamatory non-compliant documentation created by a weaponized PGS / PGSUK Human Resources (HR)  to process a false claim and basis to illegally terminate a whistle blower.  This belief has been at the core of my over three-year battle to reinstate my true and accurate data following the receipt of my personal data being processed by PGSUK through an SAR citing the UK Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA) between October – December 2014.  At that time, David Nicholson, PGSUK HR Manager, led the processing of my SAR, along with HR Officer, Laura Haswell.  However, Gareth Jones is the current PGSUK HR Manager.   Jones now oversees that my personnel file data is accurate and compliant to GDPR.  My simple request to Jones is to authenticate and prove the contents of my personnel file is accurate, as well as legally and PGSUK policy compliant through conducting a simple review of its contents.

I am not an HR professional.  However, much of my professional work experience has involved the processing and analysis of data.  Having said that, I have been an employee and interacted with HR throughout my work history,  Much of this work history was in the US.  PGSUK sponsored me and my family dependents on a Tier 2 visa.  This was my legal basis for working in England.  While in the US, I was employed by the US Department of Defense.  During that time, I completed a lengthy management training course which covered many of the functions required by managers to satisfy US HR requirements.  This included awareness of Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) regulations as well as monitoring employee development.  The HR function had always been peripheral to the professional performance of  one’s duties.  The HR function, in part, was to make sure that training and development opportunities were aligned to the professional objectives set out by the work group first line supervisor.  Employee performance was never measure by HR.  HR was tasked to make sure that such measurement and appraisal of performance conformed to the prescribed practices.  Never before, until my work experience with PGSUK, had I experienced such direct involvement by HR in actually generating HR personnel data.  In all of my years of work experience, it was the work group supervisor(s) (sometimes more than one) along with the employee who together evaluated and directed employee professional development.  Both the supervisor and employee would sign-off and agree that the generated data was true and accurate.  Any concerns about the data would be annotated and included within the final data being processed by HR prior to being finalized and regarded as accurate.

PGSUK does not even recognize that I was a foreign worker being sponsored by PGSUK on a Tier 2 visa within my PGSUK professional personnel file, even though this was my legal basis for being employed by PGSUK.  I submitted my formal grievance on 20-Sep-2013.  My Tier 2 visa had recently been renewed 15-Jul-2013,  The  20-Sep-2013 grievance document highlighted my foreign worker status as basis to elevate by claims of workplace (gang) bullying to harassment because of nationality.  The PGSUK application to UK Border Agency for my visa renewal also stated that my skills were still required.  Also, my position was listed on the shortage occupation list (SOL) which meant that local UK workers could be bypassed for consideration in filling the role.  The Tier 2 visa application process was not trivial.  PGSUK engaged legal firm Watson, Farley, and Williams to advise and guide the application processing to the desired outcome.  The Tier 2 visa application process included my dependent family members as well.  There is a substantive fee for processing single and multiple visas which PGSUK paid.  Of course, PGSUK also paid WFW for advising on this process.  So, the processing of my Tier 2 visa which was necessary for me to remain legally employed by PGSUK as a foreign worker was both deliberate and costly to the extent that PGSUK engaged external resources in addition to internal human and other resources to ensure their desired outcome.  It was not just happenstance that had me employed by PGSUK.  However, my employment contract with PGSUK entitled me to the same rights and conditions afforded UK citizens.

The 20-Sep-2013 formal grievance claimed that PGSUK was not processing my personal data correctly.  It was my belief that the processing of my personal data departed from the processes prescribed within the (2013) PGSUK Personnel Handbook, and even relevant UK employment and contract law, to the extent that the transgressions reflected the abuse of position and misuse of the performance management system that, in my view, constituted workplace harassment and bullying.  The PGSUK HR Manager, at the time, David Nicholson, was directly implicated in misconduct and mismanagement in the processing of my personal data under my original contract of employment (OCE) with PGSUK.  Perpetrators also included my direct supervisor, Edward von Abendorff, VP Marine Contract Sales – Africa, and his boss, Simon Cather, Marine Contract Africa Regional President.  PGSUK has stated in the response to the 2014 SAR that they do not process, and have destroyed, the 20-Sep-2013 grievance document within my personnel file.  The 20-Sep-2013 grievance document is the most significant document – personal data – relevant to my employment with PGSUK and is central to all of the events which followed.  The contents received from the PGSUK 2014 SAR ignores the 20-Sep-2013 grievance altogether.  Most all of the internal e-mails received from the SAR regard the processing of the SAR terms, but do not discuss the claims of breach of contract, health and safety, workplace harassment or bullying which were made within the 20-Sep-2013 grievance document.  PGSUK seems to be processing fake personal data which supports a false claim.  The defamatory personnel file documents being processed by PGSUK support a termination for performance reasons.  But, how does this comport to data provided to UK Border Agency for the application of the Tier 2 visa?

My employment with PGSUK was terminated through a settlement contract agreement (SCA) supported by the personnel file documents.  The SCA is being processed within my PGSUK personnel file.  The 20-Sep-2013 grievance document is also specifically referenced within the SCA.  In fact, the 20-Sep-2013 grievance document is the only document referenced in the SCA,  How could any legal claim of breach of the SCA be made by PGSUK if the referenced 20-Sep-2013 grievance document is not being processed?  How can the SCA be a legal instrument?  An initial SCA was proffered to me by Nicholson as a response to the delivered 20-Sep-2013 grievance of which he was a principal subject.  PGSUK did not follow the legally and contractual prescribed grievance procedure.  This constituted an additional breach in the terms of my original employment contract (OEC).  The 20-Sep-2013 grievance document cited several other breaches.  I now believe that the issues brought forth within the grievance document constituted whistle blowing.  Further, the legal adviser whom I engaged was compromised or otherwise provided with misrepresentations to affect an unfair illegal outcome.  I believe that my termination from employment was not legal or compliant to UK employment or contract law and transgressed the PGSUK Policy Handbook.  The reasons for these beliefs is stemmed in the contents which I received from the 2014 SAR,

My PGSUK personnel file contents is veritably false and inaccurate.  I disputed the contents of my personnel contents at the time, but PGSUK refused to correct knowingly false and inaccurate data.  None of the disputed documents bare my signature.  Most are the creation of, and are  signed by, Nicholson.  So, it appears that Nicholson, as a subject of a workplace grievance citing misconduct and abuse of position, including the dissemination of defamatory information about me, was allowed to proffer an illegal SCA, as well as produce forged documents to support the illegal SCA, and then finally sign the SCA, to avoid culpability for his misconduct and mismanagement.  This is why PGS / PGSUK refuse to authenticate – prove the legality of – my personnel file data and derivative processes which created it.  I have known that there were many problems with PGSUK processing of my personal data since first receiving the contents of the 2014 SAR.  However, over time, I have gained a greater understanding of  the base corruption involved in generating it.  I went public with my concerns and published my first blog post article on 3-July-2015 regarding my 2014 SAR, An American, the UK Data Protection Act, Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) and the Tyranny of “Accurate Data” .  I have now published over forty (40) blog articles which reside on my dedicated website criticizing PGS / PGSUK management.  The 2014 SAR contents and PGS / PGSUK processing of my personal data is the main topic of criticism within these blogs.  Further, the SCA contained mutual non-disparagement clauses.  PGS / PGSUK decision not to invoke these clauses with respect to my publications cast doubt on the legality of the SCA itself.  PGS / PGSUK continue to project the SCA as a legal instrument, but refuse to prove that it is.

25 October 2013 Memo

24 July 2013 Ambush Letter

20 September 2013 Presented Grievance

The mishandling of my grievance is at the source of the creation and processing of veritably false and inaccurate personal data being processed in my name.  PGSUK refuses to authenticate the data being processed in my name.  They are relying on the fact that I signed the SCA on 5-Dec-2013.  I did sign the SCA on 5-Dec-2013 under the condition that PGSUK was processing accurate data about me.  If this is the case, it should be easy to authenticate my personal data.  However, it seems obvious that PGSUK and their legal adviser for the SCA, WFW, along with my legal adviser, Landau, Zeffertt, and Weir (LZW) were lying.  How can my personal data change from accurate to inaccurate following my signing of the SCA?  Jones only needs to authenticate – prove the legality – of what I claim is unverifiable and inaccurate personal data.  Jones would also need to show that processing important personnel file documents with no counter signature adheres to PGSUK policy and procedure.  Since I know the contents of these documents is false, I cannot believe such processing is even allowed in a compliant HR.  But, Jones can clarify all of this through thoughtfully answering these queries.

Best regards,

Steven D. Kalavity

Referenced Data

20 September 2013 Delivered Grievance – Key Points

Our Code of Conduct, Core Values, and People Policy reflect the principles of PGS.  PGS expect that you would adhere to these principles at all times during your employment.

Philip Landau, LZW Solicitors, (Represented Me) Pre-Settlement E-mail Communications

On 24-Oct-2013, Philip Landau is made aware that I wanted to follow the grievance process. 

On 25-Sep-2013, Philip Landau states that he makes first contact with 25-Sep-2013. This is the same date of the forged Memo being processed by PGSUK HR signed by EVP Per Arild Reksnes and SVP Terje Bjolseth.

Questioning Landau about informing UK Border Agency about the situation. Watson, Farley & Williams, said the Tier 2 status was not discussed during negotiations.

On 26-Oct-2013, no one from PGS had contacted me with regard to the grievance. This contradicts the 25-Oct-2013 forged Memo signed by Reksnes and Bjolseth.

PGS Exploration UK Limited Requested Occupational Health Assessment During Negotiations Withheld

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