High
Court Judge Justice Bean said in his judgment that the database
would have belonged to the insulation company had the agent been an
employee but because it was a separate company the database was the
property of the agent.
"It is not disputed that the hardware and the software were the
property of [the agent company] JPA and paid for by them and that
JPA employees did the work or for some customers the overwhelming
majority of entries concerned work done for MIL [the insulation
firm]," he said.
"If [JPA employees] Mr Terry and Mr Brown and their
colleagues had been employees of MIL the database would plainly
belong to them, as it would if it had been expressly agreed between
JPA and MIL that in the event of termination the database would
become the property of MIL," said Bean. "But the individuals were
not employed by MIL and there had been no such express
agreement."
The judgment ruled that the database belonged to JPA even though
the phone line and business cards which the company used were paid
for by insulator Mark Insulations Limited. The case was brought by
JPA when the agreement between the companies was terminated by MIL.
JPA argued that MIL had no right to end their agreement.
Though the database was kept in the course of JPA's work for
MIL, there was no specific request by MIL that a databse be kept.
Justice Bean made an analogy to pre-computer sales processes in his
judgment.
"The database was made by JPA and its staff and belongs to
Mr Cureton, just as JPA's salesmen's notebooks would have done
in a pre-computer age," he said. "The terms of [JPA owner]
Mr Cureton's undertaking, to give up "all of MIL's documents,
whether written or electronic" do not assist MIL; nor does the
general law of agency. This aspect of the counterclaim must
therefore be dismissed."
