Broken Business Agreement

Jobsearch Ltd V Relational Designers Ltd & Ors (2004)

Where a defendant had been guilty of contempt of court in breaching certain orders, as the breaches were not contumacious, justice would be served by ordering the defendant to pay indemnity costs.

The claimant (J) applied for an order that the third and fourth defendants had breached court orders and were in contempt of court. J was an employment consultant, one of its services being to provide curriculum vitae to employment agencies and potential employers.

The curriculum vitae were provided to subscribers on terms that contained restrictions on use of the information in the curriculum vitae and the curriculum vitae themselves. J brought proceedings against the defendants claiming that they had used curriculum vitae from J's database without J's authority. The claim was settled upon the defendants' undertakings. J contended that certain of the undertakings had been breached by the third and fourth defendants as they still had curriculum vitae on their database that originated from J's database.

HELD: The third and fourth defendants had breached court orders and were in contempt of court. While the court accepted that if there were ambiguities in undertakings then such ambiguity should be resolved in favour of the person giving the undertaking, the court should not search for or manufacture such ambiguities. While the undertakings given were wider than the relief J could have obtained from the court, it was open for a claimant to secure such width in a settlement.

The defendants' construction of the orders gave an unnatural meaning to certain clauses. While the breaches were serious and J was justified in bringing this application, they were not contumacious and justice would be served by ordering the third and fourth defendants to pay indemnity costs.

Application granted.

Civil Procedure

Ch.D (Lewison J) 27/2/2004

LTL 27/2/2004 EXTEMPORE (Unreported elsewhere)

Document No.: AC9200685