Recruitment specialist ordered to comply with restrictive covenant  

An IT recruitment specialist has been ordered to deliver up confidential business information belonging to her former employers in line with the post-termination restrictive covenants in her contract. 

Selina Gonzalez Solicitor in our dispute resolution team reports on this recent case.

The case involved IT recruiter Ms Chadli. She had worked at the London office of Technology Sourcing Ltd since October 2020. 

Chadli led a team that sought out specialist IT candidates for businesses in France. In her role she had access to a wide variety of protected data and the company’s customer relationship management system. 

She chose to resign in May 2022 and during her exit interview said she intended to remain in recruitment but declined to say where she was going to work. 

Senior figures at Technology Sourcing Ltd were concerned about Chadli’s evasive answers, and the fact that her performance had severely declined in the previous six months. 

It conducted an examination of her work email account and discovered activity which included contact with clients while on garden leave, evidence of soliciting clients on her own behalf or that of a competitor, using her personal email address, sending candidate CVs to herself, and double deleting certain emails. 

Technology Sourcing Ltd applied for interim orders requiring Chadli to comply with post-termination restrictive covenants in her employment contract and preserve and deliver up confidential information.  

It claimed that there was no legitimate reason for the activity and that Chadli had breached her obligations and used confidential information to its detriment.  

Chadli denied any wrongdoing. She said she had not double deleted emails, had no relevant documents in her possession and had not used or disclosed any confidential information.  

The Court was satisfied that there was a serious issue to be tried and accepted that Technology Sourcing’s workforce would be destabilised if the application was not granted. 

The orders would not require any more from Chadli than was already set out in the employment contract and she would not be precluded from carrying out any lawful activity. 

The restrictions were reasonable, clearly set out, protected Technology Sourcing’s legitimate interests in a proportionate manner, and were no wider than what was required. 

The balance of convenience favoured granting the orders. 

A speedy trial was appropriate, and the orders would therefore only be in place for a short period. 

If you would like more information about the issues raised in this article please contact Selina on 01228 516666 or click here to send her an email.