A leading Scottish recruitment company has obtained a court order against two former employees after a surveillance operation caught them using confidential client information.
First People Solutions Group, which was formed in Glasgow 10 years ago and now has 160 staff in seven UK offices, obtained the order in the High Court against Roy Webb and Anna Faratro, who had sold their specialist oil and gas sector recruitment business, Tudor Personnel, to FPSG. Soon after leaving FPSG in February, they set up a new company, Alpha Oil and Gas Jobs, in direct competition.
This week, following the court ruling in Manchester, Alpha was forced to cease trading immediately, with the two defendants agreeing "to make no further use of (FPSG's) database copied by the first defendant (Webb) and used by the first and second defendants in the business of the third defendant (Alpha)".
By the end of this month they are required to "expunge irretrievably" any documents belonging to FPSG, in any form of electronic storage.
Judge Waksman QC ordered that neither Webb nor Faratro can work in the oil and gas recruitment industry for the next 12 months, with any breach of the order taken as contempt of court, liable for a potential penalty of imprisonment.
The same threat applies to "any other person who knows of this order and does anything that helps or permits the defendant to breach the terms".
The order was made after the parties agreed terms of settlement, and there was no order as to costs.
FPSG applied successfully to the court last month for an injunction, which led to a surprise raid on Alpha's office in Surrey to carry out forensic imaging of computer data and recover memory sticks and other devices.
The company had told the court that it had initially found "unusual and unexplained activity including the accessing of large amounts of confidential information" on the defendants' computers whilst they were still employed. Soon after the defendants left, key clients of Tudor were made aware of the new rival operation.
FPSG said it had told the court that it had "instructed a surveillance company who posed as start-up sandwich sellers and made an appointment to go and talk to Mr Webb and Mrs Faratro to offer their services at Alpha's offices".
A covert recording was made - of which an excerpt was later played in court - during which Webb and Faratro gave the start-up sandwich sellers helpful advice on how to start up a new business and hinted that Alpha had been helped along by the "good old database".
Sarah Birkbeck, a partner at law firm DMH Stallard, said: "The key to resolving this issue for FPSG was to work quickly to build up a strong evidential case against the defendants without alerting them to our suspicions, enabling us to surprise the defendants with the service of the (injunction) which was executed there and then by the forensic team."
FPSG managing director John Hailstone said: "Whilst we are pleased with the outcome of this case, we are very disappointed, as being a people-focused business we supported both Roy and Anna during their employment at Tudor, increasing their earnings and careers significantly. We bought Tudor Personnel on the basis of the strength of their clients and contacts which took years to accumulate."
FPSG was ranked 48th in the recent Virgin Fast Track 100 survey of private companies, and was Scottish Recruitment Consultancy of the Year in 2007.
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