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 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:
