Case No. KB-2025-003035 - [2025] EWHC 2654 (KB)

The third defendant was incorporated on 21 March 2025, which was within days of the termination of Mrs Hampton’s employment. Mr Marchant and Mrs Hampton are its shareholders and statutory directors. It is not in dispute that the third defendant is an estate agency and that it wants to solicit landlord clients in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, including in particular the SW7 area.

On the basis of the timing of its incorporation, Ms Hasking asserts with some force that Mr Marchant and Mrs Hampton must have planned to establish a company in advance of Mrs Hampton’s resignation. They deny any such advanced planning. For today’s purposes it does not matter. I note, however, that Mr Marchant and Mrs Hampton consulted someone called David Stacey on 10 March 2025 about the practicalities of setting up a company; and Mrs Hampton accepts in her witness statement that she and Mr Marchant spoke about going into business together at the end of January 2025 and at the start of February 2025.