A key employee departs. The employer, worried that
confidential information has leaked out of the company, scrambles
to respond. After a frenzied period of preparation, the employer
starts a lawsuit and seeks an injunction against the
ex-employee.
In these two recent Canadian cases, those same basic facts apply
but with very different results. First, let's look at the BC
case decided in December 2014 (JTT Electronics Ltd. v.
Farmer, 2014 BCSC 2413). In that case, the
employer sued the ex-employee and the employee countered with an
argument that the employer could not actually identify the
confidential info it sought to protect.
The Court agreed, noting: "The need to identify with some
reasonable degree of specificity what a plaintiff asserts is
confidential or proprietary serves three important and related
functions." To summarize:
