Case No. IP-2014-000051

78.I have set out the matrix of facts and my findings of fact above. Of particular importance, in my view, is the fact that the Compromise Agreement was entered into in order to settle the disputes arising from Richard Burke’s employment, and termination of employment by Oran. This termination was intimately and entirely connected, in my judgment, with his setting up of Oranmore, with Ross Melville, as a company to take a lease of the Weeting facility and start to manufacture and sell Hollowcore products in the UK. There has been made no suggestion to me in the documentation or in the evidence of the witnesses for either party that Richard Burke would have left the employment of Oran in December 2011 if Oran had decided to take on the lease of the Weeting facility itself. Both John Dooley and Richard Burke acknowledge that the former had been trying to push the latter out of Oran for some time, but John Dooley’s evidence was that it was impossible to do so while the Back Pay Claim remained unresolved. Accordingly it required Richard Burke to resign so that he could set up Oranmore in the UK, for Oran to get him out of the company. I accept that evidence, which was not challenged.79.Also important is that, by the time the parties entered into the Compromise Agreement, they both knew that: since Oranmore had started trading, it had at all times been trading under the ORANMORE Signs and the First Defendant’s Device; Oranmore knew that Oran was unhappy with the company name of Oranmore and its use of the ORANMORE signs and the First Defendant’s Device; Richard Burke had been working full time for Oranmore in the role of director since he had left Oran and would continue to work full time for Oranmore in the role of director after the Compromise Agreement was signed; Richard Burke had obtained the €600,000 Back Pay Judgment against Oran; Oran was in breach of the four day time period the Sheriff’s office had given it to pay the Back Pay Judgment in full; Oran was not in a financial position to easily meet the Back Pay Judgment, which threatened the jobs of workers at Oran; and Richard Burke refused to enter into the Compromise Agreement unless Oran signed the Oran Release.