MRS JUSTICE HILL Approved Judgment | Boxxer v Wischhusen |
Royal Courts of Justice
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL
Before:
MRS JUSTICE HILL
Between:
BOXXER LIMITED | Claimant/ Applicant |
- and - | |
JOHN WISCHHUSEN | Defendant/ Respondent |
Tom Cleaver (instructed by Russells) for the Claimant / Applicant
Ognjen Miletic (instructed by Lawrence Stephens Limited) for the Defendant / Respondent
Hearing date: 12 September 2025
Approved Judgment
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MRS JUSTICE HILL
Mrs Justice Hill:
Introduction
The Claimant is a boxing promoter, involved in organising high-profile boxing events. The Defendant is, on the Claimant’s case, still engaged as its Head of Boxing.
In early August 2025, the Defendant indicated that he wanted to leave the Claimant. The Claimant contends that it has recently become aware of evidence that the Defendant is, and has for some time, been working with others to launch a rival boxing venture in competition with the Claimant and had deleted certain emails evidencing this.
By an application notice dated 1 September 2025 the Claimant seeks an interim injunction restraining the Defendant from carrying out work for a competitor or potential competitor until trial or further order. The application was argued before me on 12 September 2025, on notice to the Defendant. This is my judgment on the application.
The Claimant’s application was supported by a witness statement from Benjamin Shalom, its founder and CEO and a witness statement from Geoffrey Cunningham, its Chief Legal Officer, both dated 1 September 2025. The Defendant responded to the application by a witness statement dated 11 September 2025. I have considered the contents of this evidence and the wider bundle place before me for the purposes of the hearing, together with the written and oral submissions of both counsel for which I am very grateful.
In cases such as this where there is a dispute as to whether an individual is prevented by contract from carrying out work in competition with his employer or former employer, it is common for the Defendant to offer temporary undertakings until the dispute can be determined at an expedited trial, in accordance with the guidance given by Balcombe LJ in Lawrence David Ltd v Ashton [1989] ICR 123 at 135E-G.
Accordingly, prior to lodging this application, the Claimant sought undertakings from the Defendant that he would not, until his engagement by the Claimant was validly terminated, engage in certain boxing-related conduct without the Claimant’s prior written consent. The Defendant refused to give any such undertakings, relying on the fact that the contractual position between the parties was disputed.
The day before the hearing the Defendant filed the witness statement to which I have referred. In that statement he proposed a compromise position involving certain restrictions on his conduct. This offer was unacceptable to the Claimant such that the application had to be fully argued before me. The Defendant argues that the application should be determined in accordance with his compromise offer.
The Claimant issued a claim form against the Defendant seeking injunctive relief and damages for breach of contract on 1 September 2025. The parties anticipate that there will be an expedited trial commencing in around November 2025.
The factual background
The Defendant is highly experienced in the world of boxing. He was first hired by the Claimant in 2020. The terms of that engagement had been set out in an email from the Defendant to Mr Shalom sent on 9 June 2020, which the Claimant agreed on 16 June 2020. The agreement covered 10 June 2020 to 31 August 2020. The parties agreed that the Defendant would not work for any other UK promoter during this time; and that he would not divulge any information about the Claimant to any other party or take any action that would damage the business.
At paragraph 7 of the Defendant’s statement he says that such unwritten contracts are not uncommon in the boxing industry and indicates that over many decades of working in the industry, he had never received or worked under a fully written contract.
The Defendant continued to work after the expiry of the originally agreed term, and on Mr Shalom’s evidence became an integral and full-time member of the team, being named as a “key man” in a significant contract between the Claimant and Sky Sports, agreed to run from 1 July 2021 to 30 June 2025.
The role of Head of Boxing with the Claimant is an important and specialist one, involving maintaining relationships with boxers’ representatives, managing their career progression, “matchmaking”, dealing with regulatory matters with the British Boxing Board of Control, ensuring the Claimant delivers the boxing elements of its fighter contracts and discussing boxing matters with its broadcasters.
In early January 2024 a draft document, entitled “Consultancy Agreement”, was drawn up. This is exhibited to Mr Shalom’s statement and commences at p.96 of the hearing bundle. It was drawn up, on the Claimant’s case, to record more fully the written terms of the Defendant’s appointment. It is agreed that the agreement was never finalised, signed or executed.
However, on the evidence of Mr Shalom and Mr Cunningham, the Defendant confirmed orally that he was happy with the proposed terms, albeit that he wished to contract personally rather than through a service company, which the document had initially envisaged. Further, the Defendant continued to serve as the Claimant’s Head of Boxing and to hold himself out as such; he invoiced the Claimant for the £9,000 per month specified in the document and was paid accordingly; and in discussions with Mr Shalom he proceeded on the basis that the terms had been agreed, for example referring to his hope or expectation of receiving the £125,000 conditional bonus for which it provided. It is said that he specifically agreed to the 12-month notice provision within the document by email on 1 May 2024.
Accordingly, the Claimant’s case is that the terms of the Defendant’s appointment are those set out in the January 2024 document, with appropriate modifications to reflect the fact that he was appointed personally rather than through a limited company. The document includes obligations on the Defendant at clause 3.1.1 to “use [his] best endeavours to promote the interests of” the Claimant; at 3.1.6 not to “make any representations to any boxing […] promoter or fighter without the consent of” the Claimant; and at 6.1.2 not to engage in any “business, trade, profession or occupation during the Engagement […] if it relates to a business which is similar to or in any way competitive with the Business of” the Claimant. It is these obligations which the Claimant contends the Defendant has breached, and which it seeks to enforce through the injunction sought.
The Defendant disputes that this document incorporated applicable terms into his contract. He points to the fact that it is unsigned and does not include full detail of the “Services” to be performed in Schedule 1. He denies that he provided a confirmation that he was happy with the terms of the draft Agreement; and contends that he would never have agreed to such terms, particularly clause 6.2 which would prevent him, for 24 months after the termination of his engagement from providing services or being employed by a series of other boxing-related companies. He queries why, if he had orally agreed to the terms in the communal kitchen, as alleged, Mr Cunningham, as a qualified solicitor, would not have followed up with some form of communication to confirm the contents of the discussion and/or a revised draft of a fully completed agreement for signature. Mr Miletic also pointed to the onerous and significantly different terms in the draft document, compared to what was agreed between the parties in 2020, and the absence of evidence that these more onerous terms were drawn to the Defendant’s attention.
On 13 May 2025 Sky Sports confirmed to the Claimant that it would not enter into a new contract after the existing one expired on 30 June 2025. There is a dispute between the parties as to why that was. Mr Shalom suggests, based on various emails and spreadsheets found to have been deleted from the Defendant’s Boxxer.com email account, that from March 2025 the Defendant was actively corresponding with Sky Sports about a proposed new boxing venture that would circumvent the Claimant and was actively undermining the Claimant’s attempts to negotiate a renewed deal with Sky. The Defendant contends in his statement that during the course of the Sky Sports contract, various disputes and allegations arose which painted the Claimant and, in particular, Mr Shalom, in a negative light, which became well-known to the boxing industry as a whole. The Defendant asserts that the emails relied upon by the Claimant in fact relate to his attempts to salvage the Claimant’s business and its relationship with Sky Sports, in line with discussions he had had with Mr Shalom.
On 12 August 2025, the Defendant made clear to Mr Shalom that he would be leaving the Claimant. Mr Shalom’s evidence is that the Defendant told him that he had received an offer from Sky, albeit that he had only been approached by Sky in the previous few days and that Sky did not yet have any firm plans for any boxing-related activity.
According to Mr Shalom, at around the same time the Claimant became aware of evidence suggesting that the Defendant was in fact already carrying out work for the benefit of either a competitor or a potential competitor. The Claimant’s General Manager was contacted by a representative of a venue management company who said that the Defendant had enquired about the availability of a venue for an event in early October 2025, which was not a date on which the Defendant had any plans to stage an event, and which coincided with a date about which “a broadcaster” (later established to be Sky) had been enquiring. On 13 August 2025 Mr Shalom asked the Defendant whether he had made any such enquiries and he denied doing so.
The Claimant then conducted a review of the Defendant’s Boxxer.com email account. The review found that the Defendant had, a few days earlier on 7 August 2025, deleted several old emails (including then deleting them again from his ‘Deleted Items’ folder). In the Defendant’s statement, he admits that he deleted these emails and that he did so in order to prevent Mr Shalom from seeing them.
Mr Shalom described the content of the emails, which were helpfully summarised at paragraph 28.2 of Mr Cleaver’s skeleton argument as follows: (i) an email from March 2025 attaching what appeared to be a framework budget for a series of boxing events, including involving fighters contracted to the Claimant, which did not correspond to any events that the Claimant was planning and which contained certain indications that the events were intended to be staged by a new venture in partnership with Sky; (ii) an email from a few days later attaching a further version of that spreadsheet with revised figures (suggesting that the Defendant had been working on the financial detail of the proposals); (iii) another attachment to the same email which was a copy of a budget prepared by the Claimant for an event the previous year (which he was not involved in preparing and which he had no valid reason to be consulting in March 2025); (iv) two drafts of what appears to be an email to a senior employee of Sky involved in producing its boxing programmes (and the main point of contact in the Claimant’s relationship with Sky), referring to an attached “updated spreadsheet” and describing proposals for a new business with 8/9 employees that would be able to “utilise and exploit existing Sky Sports facilities and channels”; and (v) an email from July 2025 attaching what appeared to be another budget for a series of boxing events, similarly unconnected with any plans of the Claimant and similarly involving a number of fighters contracted to the Claimant.
The review also found that more recently, on 20 August 2025, the Defendant had received (and then double-deleted) an email from a boxing matchmaker in the United States about arranging a potential fight. Mr Shalom’s evidence is that that cannot have been a discussion the Defendant was having on behalf of the Claimant; and that if it had been, there would have been no legitimate reason for him to delete the email.
The Claimant has reason to believe that the Defendant was assisted in relation to this activity by another employee of the Claimant, who was hired on the Defendant’s recommendation in 2023 and whom the Defendant manages.
The Claimant’s case is that conduct of this kind is plainly incompatible with the duties the Defendant owed the Claimant, whether under the terms set out in the January 2024 document or simply as a necessary incident of his role as the Claimant’s Head of Boxing.
The legal framework
Under the Senior Courts Act 1981, section 37 the High Court may grant an interlocutory or final injunction in all cases in which it appears to the court to be just and convenient to do so.
The availability of an interim injunction in these circumstances is generally subject to the well-known principles set out in American Cyanamid v Ethicon [1975] AC 396 at p.407G-408G. First, the Claimant must show that there is “a serious question to be tried”. Second, the court must consider whether damages are an adequate remedy. If there is a serious question to be tried, damages would not be an adequate remedy for the Claimant and damages would be an adequate remedy for the Defendant if it turned out at trial that the injunction should not have been granted, an injunction should normally be granted.
If there is doubt as to the adequacy of the respective remedies in damages available to either party or to both, then the balance of convenience arises. In that situation the court should take “whichever course seems likely to cause the least irremediable prejudice to one party or the other”: National Commercial Bank Jamaica Ltd v Olint Corp Ltd [2009] UKPC 16, [2009] Bus LR 1110 at [17], per Lord Hoffmann.
Cases such as Sunrise Brokers LLP v Rodgers [2014] EWCA Civ 1373 and [2015] ICR 272 and Elsevier Ltd v Munro [2014] EWHC 2648 (QB) confirm the availability in principle of injunctive relief to restrain an individual from engaging in conduct that would breach obligations under a contract of employment or service, for example providing assistance to a competitor; and that where the contract of employment is ongoing, such obligations are not subject to the doctrine of restraint of trade, and do not need to pass any test of reasonableness in order to be enforceable: Elsevier at [55].
It is well-established that the court will not exercise its discretion to enforce a contractual prohibition on working for another during a notice period if that would be tantamount to granting specific performance of the contract of service: Elsevier at [56]. However the question is whether the order would in fact compel the individual to return to work against his will, “not simply whether the employee will suffer some degree of hardship by being held to the negative obligations in his contract – and certainly not…whether he will be prevented from earning his living during the period of the restraint”: Sunrise Brokers at [33], per Underhill LJ.
Application of the American Cyanamid principles to the application
(i): Is there a serious issue to be tried?
The Defendant strongly refutes the Claimant’s claim against him, denying both the terms of the contract and the allegations of breach relied on by the Claimant, as well as any suggested causation and loss arising therefrom.
However, for the purposes of this application he quite rightly accepted through Mr Miletic that the threshold for showing that there is a serious issue to be tried is low: it amounts to the Claimant showing no more than that the claim is “not frivolous or vexatious”.
As Lord Diplock made clear in American Cyanamid at 407H, “[i]t is no part of the court’s function at this stage of the litigation to try and resolve conflicts of evidence…as to facts on which the claims of either party may ultimately depend…[t]these are matters to be dealt with at trial”.
In my judgment the threshold is plainly met: there is a serious issue to be tried between the parties.
(ii): Adequacy of damages for the Claimant
There is a significant degree of overlap between this issue and the question of balance of convenience.
Mr Cleaver relied on the fact that case-law has recognised that in situations such as this, it will generally be obvious that damages are not an adequate remedy for the Claimant. For example, in Sunrise Brokers at [53], Underhill LJ held that:
“In a case of this kind there are evident and grave difficulties in assessing the loss which an employer may suffer from the employee taking work with a competitor; even where it is possible to identify clients who have transferred their business (which will not always be straightforward, particularly where the new employer is outside the jurisdiction) there may be real issues about causation and the related question of the length of the period for which the loss of the business could be said to be attributable to the employee’s breach…There may be other intangible but real losses to the employer’s reputation.”
Similarly, in Derma Med Ltd v Dr Zack Ally [2024] EWCA Civ 175 at [76], Males LJ observed that “[a]lthough it is not a rule of law that damages can never be an adequate remedy for breach of a covenant not to compete, the cases have recognised that the factors identified [by the judge who granted the injunction at first instance] will generally mean that they are not”.
Mr Cleaver also relied on the detail of Mr Shalom’s evidence. Mr Shalom set out the context for the serious potential consequences of the Defendant’s conduct as follows. The Claimant is a relatively new entrant to the boxing promotion sector, which is otherwise dominated by two large and very well-established promoters. It is at an important transitional point in its history with the end of its contract with Sky, a new venture with the BBC having just been announced and sensitive negotiations with other TV partners being underway. Accordingly, Mr Cleaver argued that this case has many of the features identified in Sunrise Brokers. In addition, the Defendant is in a particularly significant role in the business, which is at a particularly important moment in its development.
Mr Miletic argued that the risks identified by Mr Shalom appear to be exaggerated. He contended that the Claimant’s evidence was focussed on specific interactions between the Defendant and Sky, concerning the Boxxer/Sky relationship, rather than establishing some broader intent to interfere with any other relationship of the Claimant’s or to otherwise target the Claimant’s business.
However, as I have observed, the Claimant’s position is that there is evidence that the Defendant actively undermined the attempt to secure a new agreement between the Claimant and Sky in early 2025, by secretly corresponding with Sky about proposals for an alternative venture. Mr Shalom states that Boxxer “remains open to an ongoing and important commercial relationship with Sky”, but that will obviously be much more difficult if the Defendant is free to work against the Claimant’s interests in the same or similar ways.
Moreover, as Mr Shalom explained, the Claimant has just announced a venture with the BBC and is in discussions with other TV partners. Mr Miletic highlighted that there is no evidence that the Defendant is seeking to interfere with the Claimant’s relationship with the BBC or any other unnamed pay TV broadcaster entity. However, as Mr Shalom explained at paragraph 59.5 of his statement, any broadcaster involved in boxing and contracting with a promoter would want to know that the promoter is stable and reliable. If the Defendant was able to undermine the Claimant from within, that would make the Claimant’s dealings with broadcasters much more difficult.
As he explained at paragraphs 59.2 and 59.6, maintaining stability is also important to the Claimant’s relationships with its fighters and the company’s current strategy would be put at risk if there appeared to be any lack of credibility in what it was offering. Similar considerations apply to the Claimant’s relationships with other current and potential future commercial partners.
The evidence therefore shows that if, during this important period, the Defendant was able to work actively against its interests or for the benefit of a competitor or potential competitor, that could be enormously damaging, not just because of the advantage it would give a competitor but also because of the damage it would cause to the stability and commercial reputation of the Claimant. Further, that danger is particularly serious if the Defendant is free to induce or persuade other employees of the Claimant to do the same.
Mr Miletic argued that there would appear to be no “existential threat” to the Claimant, given the BBC deal and the various other opportunities it is pursuing. Although its financial statements for the year ending 30 June 2025 have not yet been prepared, preliminary figures produced by the Financial Director show an EBITDA for the year of around £1.2 million and £2 million cash in the bank. This is not a case, he said, involving a company with only one business relationship, such that without the injunction that relationship (and all income) would be lost. However, Mr Cleaver is right to highlight that a Claimant making an application of this kind does not need to show an “existential threat”, merely the risk of irremediable harms of precisely the kind recognised in the case-law, which Mr Shalom described.
Mr Miletic submitted that the focal point is the need to protect the Claimant’s relationships with its fighters, who are the “lifeblood” of its business. If the Defendant sought to interfere in the contractual relationships of those fighters under contract with the Claimant, notwithstanding exclusivity provisions to prevent such interference, that could be compensated in damages. He points to the fact that the pre-action correspondence intimated a claim for inducement of breach of contract in those circumstances.
However, even if that is right, and even if other aspects of the harm that the Claimant could suffer would be adequately compensated in damages, it is highly unlikely that the Defendant would be able to meet any such award. He has not provided any detailed information about his means, but Mr Shalom’s evidence is that the Defendant said he still had a mortgage to pay on his family home, had hoped to pay it off with the bonus he would have received if the Sky deal had been renewed, and could not afford to earn less at this stage of his career. The Defendant’s own evidence refers to his need to support his family, with his son still at school and hoping to go to university. His case is that he could not afford to take the one third pay cut, to £6,000 a month, which the Claimant proposed to him on 4 August 2025 after the Sky contract came to an end.
For all these reasons I conclude that damages would not be an adequate remedy for the Claimant, if the injunction was not granted.
(iii): Adequacy of damages for the Defendant
Mr Miletic argued that the net effect of the injunctive relief sought would be to prevent the Defendant from working in the boxing industry at all and that his opportunities to work before the expedited trial window would dwindle. In the immediate term, the injunction sought would eliminate his prospects of working with Sky Sports. He has a limited period available to work before retirement: he is 65 years old and given the very intense “24/7” nature of the boxing business, he considers that he has two or three working years left in him, which realistically may be one more project. There would be “a future of real financial struggle” for the Defendant and his family if he cannot find alternative work. He therefore contended that the potential ramifications of this injunction on the Defendant and his family are difficult to quantify, and any damages awarded would likely be inadequate to compensate for this injury.
However, the Claimant has confirmed that it will continue to pay the Defendant’s monthly fee, so he will not be prevented from earning. The Defendant’s statement makes clear that he does not currently have any offer of work from elsewhere, and that although he has had discussions with Sky, they have “made no promises” and he is merely “hopeful that something will come to fruition soon”. At most, the Defendant could be delayed in any efforts to generate business for a proposed new venture. However, as is clear from Le Puy Ltd v Potter & Anor [2015] EWHC 193 (QB) at [58], that is not a good reason to refuse an injunction when set against the risk of harm to the Claimant, an existing business. In my judgment, there was no persuasive evidence, as opposed to assertion, that any losses sustained by the Defendant would not be capable of being remedied by damages, or that any such damages could not be quantified.
Moreover, insofar as the Claimant is required to pay the Defendant damages in the future, Mr Shalom’s evidence as to the company’s finances to which I have already referred makes clear that it is in a position to do so.
For these reasons damages would be an adequate remedy for the Defendant, if the injunction is granted and it later transpires that it should not have been.
(iv): Balance of convenience
In light of my conclusions that there is a serious question to be tried, damages would not be an adequate remedy for the Claimant and damages would be an adequate remedy for the Defendant, the balance of convenience test does not strictly arise as a separate matter for consideration. However, in case I am wrong in any of my earlier conclusions, I have gone on to consider it.
Again, the case-law is in the Claimant’s favour on this issue. In Underwriting Exchange at [33], HHJ Seymour QC observed that:
“It would be an unusual case in which a former employer was seeking to enforce against former employees restrictive covenants in a contract of employment in which the court came to the conclusion that the balance of convenience favoured the employees”.
The Defendant’s statement confirms that he accepts that he was sending business plans and proposals to Sky at the same time as the Claimant was attempting to negotiate a renewal of its agreement with Sky; and that he deliberately deleted those emails in early August 2025 in an attempt to prevent Mr Shalom from seeing them. He suggests that there was nothing dishonest about this conduct, and that he was only doing what Mr Shalom had asked. The statement also effectively confirms that he intends to contravene what the Claimant submits are his contractual obligations unless he is restrained, militating in favour of the grant of an injunction.
I accept Mr Cleaver’s submission that all the factors that generally militate in favour of the grant of an injunction in cases of this kind, as described by Underhill LJ in Sunrise Brokers, are present here. As I have said, if the Claimant’s Head of Boxing is allowed to work for the benefit of a competing venture and to undermine the Claimant’s interests at this crucial time, the risk of harm is particularly acute. For the reasons I will come to, I do not accept Mr Miletic’s submission that the Defendant’s compromise offer tips the balance of convenience in his favour.
Given that the Claimant will continue to pay the Defendant and given that he has no definite offer of work, Mr Cleaver is right to contend that the risk of harm to the Defendant if it turns out that the injunction ought not to have been granted is at present relatively remote. I say this bearing in mind his high standing in the industry, as evidenced by the various testimonials he has provided, and the proposed expedited trial. As I have explained, the Claimant is better-resourced than the Defendant, and better able to pay any sum the court might in due course order it to pay. Accordingly, the risk of irremediable injustice to the Defendant involved in granting the injunction is plainly more remote and less than the risk of such harm to the Claimant if no injunction is granted.
For these reasons, to quote Lord Hoffmannin Olint, I am satisfied that granting the injunction in favour of the Claimant is the course which “seems likely to cause the least irremediable prejudice to one party or the other”.
(v): The merits
Mr Miletic drew support from Lord Diplock’s observation in American Cyanamid a p.408C that an evaluation of the relative strength of either party’s case could tip the balance where otherwise the scales remain even, “where it is apparent upon the facts disclosed by evidence as to which there is no credible dispute that the strength of one party’s case is disproportionate to that of the other party”. He referred to the various arguments that the Defendant advances to show that the draft consultancy agreement did not incorporate the terms on which the Claimant relies.
I do not consider that these submissions assist him: this is not a case where I consider that the scales “remain even” such that the relative strength of either party’s case could potentially be relevant; and even if that was the case, this is not a situation where the suggested strength of the Defendant’s case is “apparent upon…evidence as to which there is no credible dispute”: on the contrary, the evidence is very much disputed. For those reasons this aspect of Lord Diplock’s observation in American Cyanamid is not engaged.
Accordingly, pulling all these threads together, application of the American Cyanamid principles favours the grant of an injunction in this case.
The Defendant’s compromise offer
The Defendant’s proposed compromise is that he would agree not to (without the consent of the Claimant) (i) contact any fighter under contract with the Claimant, which he defines as a “Boxxer Fighter”; (ii) correspond with any promoter or broadcaster in relation to a Boxxer Fighter, for the purposes of that promoter or broadcaster contacting that Boxxer Fighter or otherwise interfering with that Boxxer Fighter’s contract; or (iii) contact any employees or staff of the Claimant in relation to their delivery or potential delivery of boxing-related activities.
Mr Miletic contended that determining the application in this way would be a just and convenient outcome, because (i) it provides the Claimant with the peace of mind (to the extent it is needed) that it can carry on its business free of alleged potential interference from the Defendant; (ii) it provides protection for the Claimant in respect of its business, fighters and staff; (iii) it leaves the Claimant free to provide its services to the BBC and others; and (iv) it allows the Defendant to continue working in the boxing industry, when there is only a limited window for him to do so before he retires, and to provide financial support for his family.
However, as Mr Cleaver highlighted, the compromise offer effectively pre-supposes that the Defendant will set up in competition with the Claimant which is the very thing the injunction seeks to restrain. Ultimately the parties may decide to compromise the Claimant’s claim on terms along these lines. However I am satisfied that this compromise offer does not address the issues underpinning this injunction application and does not sufficiently “hold the ring” until trial.
The Claimant’s draft order
The terms of the proposed injunction are as follows:
“Until the trial of these proceedings or further order, the Defendant must not, without the prior written consent of the Claimant:
1.1. contact any boxer, or any manager, agent, or representative of a boxer, in relation to any boxing-related activity other than for the Claimant’s benefit;
1.2. engage in any work for or on behalf of any boxing-related venture (or proposed venture) other than that of the Claimant;
1.3. contact any employees or staff of the Claimant in relation to their delivery or potential delivery of boxing-related services to anyone other than the Claimant;
1.4. correspond with Sky UK Limited (“Sky”), or any representative of Sky, in relation to any boxing-related activity;
1.5. correspond with any other third party or parties in relation to the Claimant or any fighter under contract with the Claimant other than for the Claimant’s benefit.”
The Claimant’s intention, in summary, is to prevent the Defendant from working for a competitor or potential competitor, or otherwise undermining the Claimant’s commercial interests, without trespassing on matters unrelated to boxing and without interfering with his ability to continue to discharge his role as the Claimant’s Head of Boxing if he is willing to do so.
Paragraph 1.1 of the draft injunction reflects clause 3.1.6 of the Agreement (“not to make any representations to any boxing […] fighter without the consent of Boxxer”) together with the general prohibitions on competing activity as embodied in clause 3.1.1, 3.9, and 6.1.2.
Paragraph 1.2 reflects those general prohibitions, in particular clause 6.1.2 (prohibiting involvement in any “business, trade, profession or occupation […] if it relates to a business which is similar to or in any way competitive with” that of the Claimant).
Paragraph 1.3 also flows from those general prohibitions, and seeks to make clear that, as well as not being permitted to work for a competitor himself, he is also not permitted to ‘tap up’ or solicit other employees of the Claimant to encourage them to do the same.
Paragraph 1.4 would specifically prevent the Defendant from corresponding with Sky in relation to boxing-related activity without the Claimant’s written consent. That, the Claimant submits, is an appropriate means of giving effect to the prohibitions on competing activity in circumstances where (i) there is evidence that the Defendant has already secretly corresponded with Sky in relation to a proposed competing venture, and (ii) the Defendant has himself said that Sky has offered him a job.
Paragraph 1.5, similar to subparagraph 3, is directed at the possibility that the Defendant will engage in activity contrary to the Claimant’s interest in concert with others, for example liaising with a third party about arrangements to attempt to induce the Claimant’s fighters to leave. It similarly flows from the general prohibitions on competing activity, restated as relevant to the particular circumstances of this case in order to maximise certainty and hold the ring until trial.
In my judgment the terms of the draft order are appropriate, reflecting as they do the terms the Claimant is seeking to enforce.
Conclusion
For all these reasons I make the order sought by the Claimant. I will now hear further submissions on costs and the directions required for an expedited trial of the Claimant’s claim.