Whether it’s an angry ex-colleague, ex-employee or ex-director – if your business has valuable confidential information that it needs to protect, these people will inevitably know about it.
When that person leaves – how do you stop them from disclosing information about your product or company to other suppliers?
We looked at practical legal steps (restrictive covenants, contractual provisions) and technical/IT steps that you can use to prevent the loss of IP, data and know-how in a recent workshop and picked up some useful industry perspectives from those who attended.
If all else fails then the court will intervene, occasionally with a fairly stringent perpetual injunction, prohibiting that person from (ever!) disclosing that information, as in a recent case involving a golf trolley device .
To get such a prescriptive remedy however you’ll need to act fast, demonstrate a real threat and that other remedies will not suffice. Getting the right IP and contractual protection in place before you reach a dispute can significantly improve your chances.