A V 17 DEFENDANTS

Seventeen defendants, who were former employees of Rohit’s client company, were alleged by the client, which specialised in the development of software, of infringing its intellectual property rights. Rohit’s team sought injunctive relief in light of extraordinary discoveries unearthed by the client, which indicated that an agreement had been made by several of the defendants to resign from their employment and set up another, competing, company and for that company to use the client’s software. The allegations on behalf of the client included appropriation of intellectual property which belonged to the claimant; inducing a purported termination of an agreement with the claimant’s principal client; and breach of contract.

At stake were potentially tens of millions of pounds of revenue.

The trial of the dispute was originally listed for 10 days but after several interim injunctive relief hearings, which involved the exchange of extensive witness evidence, the matter was settled in favour of the claimant.

The significance of the case lay in the fact that properly fought, with attention to detail, few cases need to be tried. In this case, it became clear to the opponents that the claimant had marshalled the facts to an unassailable conclusion of infringement. The case was therefore brought to an end efficiently, avoiding a lengthy, expensive, trial.