QBE Management Services (UK) Ltd v Charles Dymoke and Others
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Justice Longmore,Lord Justice Etherton |
| Judgment Date | 28 October 2011 |
| Neutral Citation | [2011] EWCA Civ 1438 |
| Docket Number | Case No: A2/2011/2688 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 28 October 2011 |
[2011] EWCA Civ 1438
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
MR NIGEL WILKINSON QC
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Lord Justice Longmore
and
Lord Justice Etherton
Case No: A2/2011/2688
S. Bloch QC and D Brown (instructed by Morgan Lewis & Bockius) appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
D Reade QC and D Martin (instructed by Mayer Brown> International) appeared on behalf of the Respondent.
This is an application for permission to appeal, brought on urgently, from a decision to award an injunction ordered by Mr Nigel Wilkinson QC sitting as a deputy judge of the Queen's Bench Division. The claimant is a major player in the marine insurance market. The first defendant was a senior manager and underwriter, although not a director, of the marine company now owned by the claimant. He resigned on 28 April of this year. He was under an obligation to give six months' notice which expired, as it happens, yesterday. He has been on garden leave since he resigned. The second defendant was a senior underwriter. He also resigned on 28 April. His employment ended on 27 July since he was subject to a three-month notice period, as was the third defendant, a senior claims manager of the claimant, and he resigned on the same day. Like the others, he has been on garden leave. All the contracts have requirements to act in good faith for the claimant and to use best endeavours to promote the interests of the company; they also had restrictions against competition.
The aim of the defendants is to set up a new company in the marine insurance market which will be in competition with the claimants. On 25 August this year Kenneth Parker J enjoined the defendants, including the fourth defendant, the company they had formed, from competing until the end of the period in which they had agreed not to do so, and he ordered a speedy trial which is now fixed to begin on 2 November, which is I think Wednesday of next week.
Disclosure for the purposes of that speedy trial has taken place and the claimants say that it is now clear from that disclosure that, while employed by the claimants, all three defendants have acted in breach of their contracts of employment and in breach of any fiduciary duties that there may have been, in using confidential information belonging to the claimants and in canvassing and attempting to obtain business from the claimants' current brokers and clients. The claimants further say that as a result of that the defendants have obtained an unfair start in the competition stakes in what they are proposing to do and that that unfair start has arisen as a result of that breach of contact. The claimants have therefore applied for the injunctions granted by Kenneth Parker J to be extended to the trial and thus beyond the termination date for the anti-competition covenants because they assert it is right to restrain the defendants from taking advantage of what has come to be known in the trade as the springboard they have built up because of those breaches. They therefore seek to have continuing relief in the form of the injunctions granted by the judge in this case. That is a recognised form of relief in the cases with which the judge expressed himself to be familiar,...
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