Disloyal employee receives £50,000 damages bill

A senior recycling company employee who violated the duty of good faith and fidelity he owed his bosses when he upped sticks and set up a rival business paid a heavy price for his disloyalty when the High Court ordered him to pay more than £50,000 in damages.

The man, who managed one of the company’s depots, successfully argued that he did not owe a fiduciary duty to his employers and that restrictive covenants in his contract were unenforceable. However, the Court nevertheless found that he had breached his contract by ‘directly and intimately’ involving himself in setting up a competing business.

His new employers had ‘conspired’ with him to breach his contract and both were held liable to pay the company damages of £51,822. The man was also left facing heavy legal costs bills after his counterclaim that he had been wrongfully dismissed by the company was rejected.

Contact: David Hacker