Enjoining Orders against ex-employees of Acquest Ltd for unfair competition

The Commercial High Court recently issued enjoining orders against the ex-employees of Acquest Ltd, one of the market leaders in Sri Lanka’s premier real estate services company. 

Acquest manages an exclusive clientele of High Net Worth Individuals both Local and foreign including Institutional Investors, property developers, including Sri Lankan expatriates, corporates, diplomatic missions and international NGOs and currently manages a property portfolio exceeding $40 Million.

In a novel turn of events, Counsel appearing for Acquest Ltd Attorney-at-Law Nishan Premathiratne tendered, in a sealed envelope to the Commercial High Court, the undisclosed business sensitive information which Acquest claimed was unlawfully acquired and misused  by the former  employees, which was directed by the Learned High Court Judge Amarasekera to be kept in the Court Registrar’s safe locker and where the Registrar was further directed to refrain from opening the said envelope without the permission of the Learned Judge and to be done so only in  the presence of all parties. This is one of the very rare instances of this nature to have taken place in the Commercial Court. 

The Commercial Court drew analogy to the United States legislature which mandates a court to be tendered with the confidential information when any order is sought alleging unlawful disclosure and use of confidential business sensitive information.

These interim orders were sought by Acquest through three separate Intellectual Property cases instituted separately against Former Manager of the Company Shawn Timothy,  Sithmy de Silva, and Viduranga Hewage who according to Acquest had actively engaged in unlawful and dishonest practices of soliciting clients of the Acquest using the business sensitive information belonging to Acquest in violation of their employment contracts. 

In addition to the interim relief, Acquest was also seeking a sums of Rupees 20 million from each of the said employees as damages for the alleged wrongful and illegal conduct in using the business sensitive information belonging to Acquest.

In its Plaint to the Court Acquest had pleaded that it currently brokers over 60% of all the transactions that take place in the high-end secondary condominium market and in addition manages 7% of all the high end apartments in Colombo which interalia includes currently over 90 units with the overall value of the properties exceeding $40 million.  Acquest in  addition also had stated that it acts as the exclusive agent for many premium properties such as penthouses and prime landed residential and commercial properties and has also been engaged directly as the main real-estate sales company outside of the internal sales team for “Residences at the Colombo City Centre project, Bullers Lane Residencies Colombo 07 and also has  provided services for upcoming luxury developments such as Rarus Apartments, Waterfront Properties, Altair Residences and Union Place Apartments.

Upon hearing the lengthy submissions of Counsel on behalf of Acquest Ltd and considering all material facts the Learned Judge of the High Court granted four Enjoining Orders in the first instance preventing Shawn Timothy, Sithmy de Silva and Viduranga Hewaga from falsely misrepresenting to the clients of Acquest Ltd that they were still in the employment of the company and in addition from soliciting clients of Acquest Ltd.

Counsel Nishan Premathiratne appeared with Nadun Wijesiriwardena and Yasith Hirimburegama on the instructions of Attorneys’-at-Law Sanjaya Fonseka and Peummi Premathiratne  for Acquest Ltd. The three cases are coming up on the 7th of July 2016 for the Defendants to file their respective defenses.