Employment
Client data returned and undertakings signed in 4 weeks.
A 30-person recruitment agency
Area
Led by
Instruction to result
Fee
, 2025
- InstructedA sales director leaves for a competitor.
- Letter sentAsking for the client list back, and undertakings.
- Undertakings givenSigned by the former director.
- ClosedDeletion confirmed. No court application needed.
Result not published. Closed 4 weeks after instruction.
Demo matter. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.
A recruitment agency’s sales director resigned and, after his notice, joined a competitor. When the agency’s IT provider closed his account, it found that the week before he resigned he had emailed a spreadsheet of client contacts and candidate details to a personal address. His contract had a confidentiality clause and a six-month restriction on dealing with clients he had worked with. The agency feared losing its largest accounts within weeks, and asked whether it should go to court.
Hana checked first that the contract restrictions were narrow enough to have a reasonable prospect of being enforced: six months, limited to clients he had dealt with in his last year. The IT provider preserved the email logs as evidence. Hana also took the agency through whether the email was a personal data breach it had to report to the ICO, and it recorded its decision and the reasons.
Two days after instruction, Hana wrote to the former director and, separately, to his new employer. The letters asked for the spreadsheet to be returned and deleted, for written undertakings not to use it or to deal with the listed clients for the rest of the six months, and set out the court application the agency would make if he refused. They also offered to resolve it without court, which is what happened.
The former director signed undertakings on 21 November, and an independent IT check confirmed the deletion a week later. No court application was needed. The agency asked us not to publish the terms, so this record shows the timeline only. It now removes access to client systems on the day a senior salesperson resigns, and reminds every leaver of their obligations in writing.
Hana had the letter out in two days. We did not lose a single client.
Managing director, the recruitment agency
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