Deli secures court order on former employees

A Co Galway company, Dunport Limited, trading as Deli Systems 2000 - which supplies and installs catering and delicatessen equipment - has secured High Court orders restraining four former employees and two rival companies from using any confidential information belonging to Deli that may be in their possession.

Mr Tom Mallon, for Dunport, of Ornamore, secured the orders from Mr Justice Kearns on the basis of an affidavit from Mr Michael Farrington, managing director of Dunport.

Mr Farrington expressed concern that Mr Patrick McCartan, whom, he said, had been Dunport's most senior employee, and three other former employees, Mr Gerry Atkinson, Mr Gerry Duffy and Mr Declan Walsh, had confidential information belonging to Dunport, which he feared was being used for the benefit of the two rival companies.

Mr Farrington said Mr McCartan had resigned from Dunport on March 7th and had taken up employment shortly afterwards with one of the defendant companies, Refrigeration Engineering Limited (REL), Hebron Road, Kilkenny.

He believed Mr Atkinson, Mr Duffy and Mr Walsh, who had all resigned in March or last month giving short notice, were working with either REL or the second defendant company, FDS Foodservice Design Systems Limited, which, Mr Farrington believed, was wholly owned or controlled by REL.

He said the four former employees had, when resigning, misled him about their true intentions.

He had no issue with the termination of their employment with Dunport but took serious issue with their conduct since their resignations.

He believed the former employees had removed confidential information from Dunport's company records and, in particular, documents relating to potential and actual orders.

He also believed the two defendant companies had entered into an agreement with a German company, Ubert Gastrotechnik GmbH, in order to act as the latter's exclusive distributors in Ireland for certain products, despite a valuable agreement reached in 2000 between Dunport and Ubert that Dunport would be its exclusive distributor.

He believed the defendant companies, using information supplied to them by his former employees, had actually delivered goods to customers of Dunport's on foot of orders and inquiries made to the former employees while they had been working with Dunport.

Unless the High Court restrained the defendants, Mr Farrington believed they would use this confidential information to their own benefit and to the detriment of Dunport.