The Defendants’ professional skills were engaged to present the plaintiff company in a good light, and an injunction was granted to restrain them from doing the opposite. Sach LJ said: ‘even in the commercial field, ethics and good faith are not to be regarded as merely opportunist or expedient’ and Shaw LJ: ‘There is the larger question of the undesirability of presenting simulated trials of the subject matter of pending or prospective litigation on so influential a medium of publicity as television. This must be a matter of degree. When the presentation appears to encroach upon the function and authority of the judicature, the limits of tolerance are clearly exceeded’.
Lord Denning MR emphasised that the right of privacy is fundamental. English law ‘should conform as far as possible with the provisions of the European Convention of Human Rights.’
Confidentiality is a relative concept
Shaw LJ said: ‘ . . the communication in a commercial context of information which at the time is regarded by the giver and recognised by the recipient as confidential and the nature of which has a material connection with the commercial interests of the party confiding that information, imposes on the recipient a fiduciary obligation to maintain that confidence thereafter unless the giver consents to relax it.’
Judges:
Lord Denning (dissenting), Shaw, Templeman LJJ
Citations:
[1982] QB 1, [1982] QB 1, [1981] 2 All ER 321, [1981] 2 WLR 848
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Crown Dilmun, Dilmun Investments Limited v Nicholas Sutton, Fulham River Projects Limited ChD 23-Jan-2004
There was a contract for the sale of Craven Cottage football stadium, conditional upon the grant of non-onerous planning permissions. It was claimed that the contract had been obtained by the defendant employee in breach of his fiduciary duties to . .
Cited – Lion Laboratories Ltd v Evans CA 1985
Lion Laboratories manufactured and marketed the Lion Intoximeter which was used by the police for measuring blood alcohol levels of motorists. Two ex-employees approached the Press with four documents taken from Lion. The documents indicated that . .
Cited – Ratiu, Karmel, Regent House Properties Ltd v Conway CA 22-Nov-2005
The claimant sought damages for defamation. The defendant through their company had accused him acting in such a way as to allow a conflict of interest to arise. They said that he had been invited to act on a proposed purchase but had used the . .
Cited – Mersey Care NHS Trust v Ackroyd QBD 7-Feb-2006
The trust, operators of Ashworth Secure Hospital sought from the defendant journalist disclosure of the name of their employee who had revealed to the defendant matters about the holding of Ian Brady, the Moors Murderer, and in particular medical . .
Mentioned – AD and OH (A Child) v Bury Metropolitan Borough Council CA 17-Jan-2006
The claimants, mother and son, sought damages from the respondent after they had commenced care proceedings resulting in the son being taken into temporary care. The authority had wrongly suspected abuse. The boy was later found to suffer brittle . .
Cited – British Broadcasting Corporation v Harpercollins Publishers Ltd and Another ChD 4-Oct-2010
The claimant sought an injunction and damages to prevent the defendant publishing a book identifying himself as ‘the Stig’ saying that this broke his undertaking of confidentialty as to his identity, a necessary part of the character in the TV . .
Cited – British Broadcasting Corporation v Harpercollins Publishers Ltd and Another ChD 4-Oct-2010
The claimant sought an injunction and damages to prevent the defendant publishing a book identifying himself as ‘the Stig’ saying that this broke his undertaking of confidentialty as to his identity, a necessary part of the character in the TV . .
Explained – Vestergaard Frandsen A/S and Others v Bestnet Europe Ltd and Others ChD 26-Jun-2009
Arnold J reviewed the authorities and expressed his conclusion that an injunction will not be granted to prevent a future publication of information that has ceased to be confidential. He qualified this statement in relation to information that . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Company, Intellectual Property, Media, Human Rights
Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.192212