Case No. IP-2018-000134

78.In closing, Trailfinders’ relied only on acts admitted by Mr La Gette, although it maintained the position that there were likely to have been other, similar, acts done in breach of confidence. Superfacts 79.The first type of act admitted concerned a software system owned by Trailfinders called ‘Superfacts’, which records information about clients. Mr Simpson identified a wide range of information held on the system and his characterisation of the information was confirmed by Mr La Gette. Superfacts is of particular value when a client calls a sales consultant. The software recognises the telephone number of the client and causes other information relating to that client to appear on the consultant’s screen. 80.Sales consultants access Superfacts using an identification unique to them and a password. Generally it is only possible to access Superfacts while on Trailfinders’ premises but in exceptional circumstances, such as having responsibility to take calls on Christmas Day, an individual may be authorised to log in remotely, in which case this will be enabled by Trailfinders’ IT team. 81.When the Defence of the Second to Fifth Defendants was re-amended, the following paragraphs were among those added: “25A. Prior to the commencement of his franchise arrangement with TCL, Mr La Gette compiled a list of contacts and certain information about those contacts to be uploaded in due course to his database within TCL's system (‘the List’). The contacts in the List included friends, family members, former school and university friends, social and business contacts of Mr La Gette, as well as certain clients that Mr La Gette had dealt with during the course of his employment at Trailfinders. 82.As pleaded, Mr La Gette’s defence was that the information he took from the Superfacts system was not confidential. In cross-examination he explained this in more detail. He said that he copied information from Superfacts on to an A4 sheet of paper on the last day of his employment, 4 October 2016. The information was then uploaded on to a spreadsheet which was given to TCL in advance of his induction into that company. Mr La Gette said that he had been very confident that he would have been able to collect the information himself without resorting to Superfacts. But for ease of time and speed he filled in a few of the gaps. He did not believe that he was taking anything confidential because the gaps could have been filled from publicly available sources. Client A 83.Mr La Gette also admitted that before he left Trailfinders he printed two hard copies of the information relating to an individual referred to in the proceedings as ‘Client A’. Client A was described in the Re-Amended Defence of the Second to Fifth Defendants as a longstanding and high-value client of the Trailfinders’ Nottingham office, with whom Mr La Gette had developed a strong professional relationship over many years. When Mr La Gette left Trailfinders he was in the process of booking two large trips for Client A. He wanted the information about those trips so that he could complete the bookings for Client A after he left Trailfinders. Viewtrail 84.As I have said, Viewtrail is the name of another computer system used by Trailfinders, this one accessible by clients. At the relevant time a client could access their details by using their booking reference number and surname or alternatively using a hyperlink sent by a Trailfinders sales representative. 85.In the Re-Amended Particulars of Claim Trailfinders identified 30 occasions on which Mr La Gette had accessed Viewtrail after he had left Trailfinders’ employment, obtaining information in relation to 10 clients. 86.In the Re-Amended Defence of the Second to Fifth Defendant this was admitted (the admission appears to have been made on the assumption that there were only 9 clients, but nothing turned on it). It was also admitted that Mr La Gette solicited the business of all those clients after he had left Trailfinders’ employment and that 8 of them had booked trips with Mr La Gette since he started work with TCL.