The knives were drawn yesterday between the attorneys representing ferromanganese firm Assmang and nine workers dismissed on the grounds that they were 100 percent disabled, as legal eagles clashed over whether confidential medical information should be disclosed in the arbitration hearing...Fiona Leppan...legal representative for Assmang, said it was impossible to continue with the inquiry...unless the confidential medical information was disclosed. Richard Spoor, the attorney for the former employees, said that the wholesale dissemination of confidential medical information would be a violation of their human rights...Spoor said Assmang had already illegally accessed the confidential medical information, and the company was seeking to obtain sanction for this after the event. "We are appalled by Assmang's contempt for medical confidentiality," said Spoor.