Company Protects Its Confidential Data From Misuse By Ex-Employee

The recent High Court decision in the case of First Conferences Services Limited & another v Richard Bracchi & another [2009] EWHC 2176 (Ch), 26 August 2009 demonstrates the ways in which businesses can protect themselves against misuse of their key business information. The case addresses various legal protections arising from database rights, rights of confidentiality and rights in passing off.

Background: In this case the claimants arranged conferences and had developed a large contacts database of many thousands of names. This had been compiled over a long time from various sources such as LinkedIn, rather than having been bought in bulk from third parties.

The defendant was employed by the claimants as a conference organiser, before leaving to start his own business. The defendant downloaded the claimants' contacts database to his personal internet account just before handing in his notice. However, the claimants had 'seeded' their contacts database with various entries which were subsequently found in both the claimants' and the defendant's databases.

Claim: The claimants contended that the defendant used the information he had downloaded to help set up his new business, in breach of confidentiality obligations and database rights. They also claimed that he had passed off some of the conferences he subsequently ran as having been those of the claimants.

Judgment: The court held that the defendant had taken advantage of his ex-employers' time, effort and expense in putting together valuable material. The evidence showed that the claimants had spent considerable time and effort compiling their database and the extraction from that database of a large number of customer contacts constituted a breach of article 16(1) of the Copyright and Rights in Database Regulations 1997. Based on the facts, the court held that 'It is plain therefore that [the defendant] has...