Sussex firm claims first High Court injunction over misuse of LinkedIn

Publisher granted control of LinkedIn groups set up to help rival business

Sussex firm Gaby Hardwicke has claimed to have won the first ever High Court injunction granted regarding misuse of LinkedIn.

Head of employment Paul Maynard (pictured) said courts were reluctant to take action, because LinkedIn's terms and conditions made it clear that the information was owned by the account-holder.

However, Maynard said the High Court had demanded that a former employee of publisher Whitmar hand over control of LinkedIn groups.

Ruling in Whitmar Publications v Gamage [2013] EWHC 1881 (Ch), Peter Leaver QC said that in January this year the publisher lost David Gamage, its sales manager, Susan Wright, its managing editor and Steven Crawley, a production editor.

The court heard that they formed a new company, Earth Island, at the end of August 2012, four months before they resigned.

Whitmar argued that Earth Island produced a media pack presenting it as a business with "strikingly similar features" and circulation figures to Whitmar.

Counsel for the company also said Wright had failed to provide the user name, password and other access details for four LinkedIn groups managed by her on behalf of the company.

Judge Leaver QC said Whitmar's LinkedIn groups "appear to have been used as the source of emails for Earth Island's press release in which a large number of individuals were invited to attend an 'informal event' at a bar in Leicester Square."

The judge said he was in no doubt that the three defendants were taking steps to compete with Whitmar for over a year.

"The steps they were taking were not just preparatory steps," he said. "They were steps taken with more than just the intention to set up another company. They were active steps to compete."

Judge Leaver QC concluded that Whitmar had a "very good chance" of success at trial and granted the relief sought by the company in the form of an injunction.

Maynard said that although Whitmar had no written contracts of employment for the three departing employees, the court was satisfied that the creation of competing LinkedIn groups and removal and retention of business cards were sufficient to amount to a breach of the implied duty of "good faith and fidelity".

Along with a mandatory injunction, he said the publisher had been granted a "springboard injunction" to deprive the defendants of the unfair head start they had obtained.

"The law has to keep up with changes in technology," Maynard added. "More and more express terms are being added to contracts requiring people to delete social media accounts, particularly in compromise agreements and senior executive contracts."