D v P

In September I heard an expedited trial of a claim to enforce the terms of certain post-termination restrictive covenants in the Defendant’s contract of employment with the Claimant.

I heard the majority of the trial in private pursuant to CPR 39.2(3)(c) as I was satisfied, having regard to the principle of open justice and Article 6 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, that this was necessary to protect the confidentiality of certain information which would have been damaged or destroyed were the matter to have been heard in public. I also gave permission for the trial to be listed anonymously for the same reason. I did so on the basis that the entirety of the proceedings were to be transcribed and that I would reconsider those rulings in light of my judgment.

On 23 October 2015 I handed down my Judgment in private and heard submissions as to whether, and if so, when, that Judgment and any of the other materials relating to the case could be made public. In that regard I was referred, among other things, to the Practice Guidance (Interim Non-disclosure Orders) [2012] 1 WLR 1003, POI v Lina [2011] EWHC 25 (QB) and Re Trusts of X Charity [2003] 3 All ER 860.

I have decided that it is strictly necessary in the interests of justice to continue the confidentiality regime covering these proceedings for the time being. In particular, I am satisfied that my full Judgment cannot be made public without destroying or damaging the confidentiality of the confidential information to which I have referred, and that it would be impossible to prepare a redacted or anonymised version of it for release to the public without the same result. The same is also true of the terms of the Order that I have made.

In my Order I have, however, provided that the parties are at liberty to refer publicly to those parts of the proceedings that have taken place in open court together with the following facts and matters concerning the case:

“Following an expedited trial of the claim by the Claimant in September 2015, which was heard in private to protect confidential information, the Court, by order made on 23 October 2015, granted an injunction until 15 June 2016 to prevent the Defendant acting in breach of certain post-termination restrictions in his contract of employment. The Court was satisfied that the Defendant was acting in good faith, and had acted honestly in relation to the matters at issue in the claim, but considered that injunctive relief was nonetheless appropriate in the circumstances.”

The Order that I have made also contains a number of provisions which will, as and when circumstances change, enable me to consider whether to relax or modify the confidentiality restrictions attaching to the Judgment, the Order and other materials relating to the case.