Contacting customers of previous employer

Surely it will be somewhat dependent on whether the clients are businesses or private individuals?

Might there be an issue of breach of copyright on a database?

a close friend has done this recently, he went to a friend who is a barrister who looked over his contract terms, nothing stopping him from doing it. As he was a sales and support worker he knew most of the clients anyways so never "stole" any database, rather made one up when he left......

Are employment contracts the only thing that can protect business owners from their clients information being used? If sub contractors are being used with no employment contract and they have access to the DB of customers details, how would one protect themselves from having this DB used by anyone who has had access to it?

Graham wrote: »

There's nothing to prevent you putting a contract in place with your subcontractors,

That would make them contractors, not subcontractors.

A collateral agreement is what you are thinking of.

If the customers are private individuals then there may be a Data Protection issue, however it is only the customers who's data has been used that can make a complaint so it is of little use to the OP.

If a former employee took a a customer list from an employer it could certainly be argued that that was a form of theft, however if he recreated it from memory copyright theft certainly won't be a cause of action, copyright only exists in the actual layout and representation of the thing itself not its memory or the ideas expressed in it.

Victor wrote: »

I disagree. The data controller would be aware of a breach of the DPAs and is required to report it.

In fairness you could be right actually.

Victor wrote: »

Sod layout and representation, it's all about content.

It certainly isn't about content, the copyright of a data base is not the same as the copyright of the information in it. If the a data base or customer list was recreated from memory (however likely or unlikely that might be) there is no copyright theft.

Labarbapostiza wrote: »

I know it's deeply upsetting. A business owner builds their business up, brick by brick, with no help from anyone. An employee, who takes none of the risks or has any of the worries of the business owner, disloyally runs off to a competitor with contacts they've made through the course of their employment. There should be a law against it. But because of successive Marxist and socialist governments, employees are all hold business owners to ransom.


That depends on your business ideology. From the perspective of cartels, cartelling is a swell idea. If you have a socialist/Marxist ideology, you might think tramps should be given an equal shot as those from respectable families. But why share the cake with everyone when you can just cut it up between friends and enjoy what you deserve.

No-poach agreements are very efficient at keeping wages down. When it comes to the erosion of employee wages, business owners act in solidarity.

This has absolutely nothing to with Marxism or socialist; something which Ireland has not be renowned for since the 1920s.

The cornerstone of any liberal, democratic, capitalist state involves individual freedom of action and responsibility for the consequences of those actions. All employers are free to insert non-compete clauses into their contracts of employment. The law rightly recognises that there may be limits to these since they stymie the labour market in certain areas. However, under a classic liberal, capitalist model, if you fail to bargain for one of these clauses, then you have to bear the consequences of that failure.

meathstevie wrote: »

Someone explain to me how a non-compete clause could be worth the paper it's written on after the employment contract it related to ceases to exist ?

It's not like you're still subject to company disciplinary procedures if you're no longer an employee.

Obligations under a contract can continue to exist after the contract is executed. You may not be subject to the disciplinary Procedure but you can be sued under the non compete clause in the contract, which you agreed to.

Just to confirm that AIB and Diamond was decided at the interlocutory stage and that there is a long and excellent judgment by Frank Clark setting out many of the points covered in this thread. AIB were granted the injunction and the matter was subsequently settled. Generally in these types of matters whoever wins the interlocutory will win the substantive hearing. Not always but in the majority of cases.

The judgement is worth reading and clearly sets out that a breach of fiduciary duty on the part of an employee can be inducted in this jurisdiction:

“However, AIB’s case is that the personal defendants took actions, whilst still employees of AIB and in breach of their contracts of employment, which actions, it is said, gives Centralis an opportunity to obtain an advantage, by the use of confidential information and by taking advantage of the alleged breach of contract, so as to give it a head start in competing with AIB.

It will be necessary to analyse the jurisprudence in respect of springboard injunctions in due course. However, for present purposes it is sufficient to note that all counsel were agreed that a springboard injunction cannot be used to obtain a restraint on competition as such. An over broad restraint on competition would not, of course, be permissible even if relevant clauses were included in the contracts of employment concerned. On the facts of this case, there were no such clauses in any event. It is clear that AIB cannot achieve, by the back door of a springboard injunction, the benefit of permissible restraint clauses which AIB had not previously sought to have included in the relevant contracts of employment.

Indeed, one counsel, doubtless aware of the extra judicial interests of the trial judge, made the analogy that the springboard injunction provides the court with a jurisdiction similar to that which allows a horse to be handicapped but not disqualified. That is, indeed, the point. The springboard injunction can only be directed towards putting in place a reasonable measure or measures which are designed to take away an illegally obtained advantage. The measures cannot go beyond that which is reasonably necessary to achieve that end. It cannot be directed towards preventing competition as such.”

The only problem with this course of action is of course the expense, it is not cheap and would really only be available to and opposable by parties with deep pockets.