Post employment restrictive covenant – unreasonable restraint of trade – six months restriction – not to become shareholder in a competitor.
Held: The injunction against employment and holding the shares was discharged. The Court rejected the construction placed by Mann J upon the word ‘interested’ in the non-competition covenant. It held that its effect would be to prohibit Ms Tillman from holding even a minority shareholding in any of the competing businesses there specified and that, as such, the covenant was in unreasonable restraint of trade; and it refused to sever the word from the remainder of the clause so as to save the remainder of the prohibition.
Judges:
Longmore, Patten, Sales LJJ
Citations:
[2017] EWCA Civ 1054, [2017] WLR(D) 492, [2017] IRLR 906, [2018] ICR 574
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Appeal from – Egon Zehnder Ltd v Tillman ChD 23-May-2017
Application for an injunction to enforce an employee restrictive covenant which, if effective, would restrain the defendant from working for a competitor of the claimant for a period of six months from the termination of her employment. Mann J, at . .
Cited by:
Appeal from – Tillman v Egon Zehnder Ltd SC 3-Jul-2019
The company appealed from rejection of its contention that its former employee should be restrained from employment by a competitor under a clause in her former employment contract. . .
Cited – Freshasia Foods Ltd v Lu ChD 20-Mar-2019
The Court considered continuation of an interim injunction to enforce a post employment restrictive covenant.
Held: Arnold J ruled that the employer had failed to establish legitimate interests which required the protection of the covenant. He . .
Cited – Freshasia Foods Ltd v Jing Lu ChD 4-Jan-2019
The Court granted an interlocutory injunction by way of enforcement of parts of an employee’s non-solicitation post-employment covenant. Treating the inquiry as purely interlocutory, he made only provisional determinations. These were that three . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment, Contract
Updated: 10 April 2022; Ref: scu.591197
