A recruitment company that breached a confidentiality agreement with a client has been ordered to pay her £3,000 damages.
Ms Sinead Kavanagh, a sales administration trainer with Gateway 2000, Coolock, Dublin, told Judge Patrick McCartan she had responded to an advertisement by NRC Ltd, Ely Place, Dublin, by submitting details of her career history while looking for alternative employment.
After an interview with Microsoft she had turned down the offer of a job on the grounds it was temporary and unsuitable. Later a colleague in Gateway told her that he had interviewed for the Microsoft job and had learned of her interest in it through NRC.
Mr Colm P. Condon, counsel for Ms Kavanagh, told the court that although there had been no written contract with NRC it was an implied condition of the arrangement between the parties that his client's interest in seeking another job would remain confidential.
Judge McCartan said Ms Kavanagh worked in an area of high competition in which mobility was a feature. He was satisfied a good and valid contract came into existence through having made available all her personal details to NRC. The events that transpired amounted to a substantial breach of that contract.
A breach of confidentiality could have had catastrophic consequences for Ms Kavanagh and she had been fortunate in that her colleague had not disclosed to anyone besides her what he had learned from NRC.