Can I Take My Contacts With Me?
If an employee leaves a company, can he copy his list of contacts (e.g. from Outlook)?
The answer is that e-mail address lists which form part of the employer’s IT system will always belong to the employer (even if the list is not confidential). This was confirmed in a recent case, where an employee copied his Outlook contacts before setting up a competing business. Although the judge ruled that he could remove personal contacts, it was held that all the other contacts remained the property of the employer. Three lessons seem to emerge:
- If you want to stop employees stetting up competing businesses, then draft suitable restrictive covenants preventing post-employment competition (rather than having to rely on non-copying of contact lists).
- Have well drafted confidentiality provisions in your contracts of employment- although there is an implied term protecting an employer’s confidential information in all contracts of employment, express ones can protect so much more.
- Employers should have a clear e-mail list policy and that policy should be communicated to staff. Encourage staff to separate their personal contacts from business contacts, and so make it easier to legally enforce non-copying.
Suzanne Eva, Partner – Employment Department
