Confidence

This is the remedy for individuals and companies if someone is about to publish or has published confidential information about you.

It’s the option you’ll consider, for example, if :

• you’re a company and a former member of staff threatens to publish commercial secrets to a competitor
  
  
• you’re an individual and someone threatens to break a confidentiality clause you have in a contract with them
  
  
• an ex threatens to “kiss and tell”

You can obtain the Court’s protection if:

1. Information has the necessary “quality of confidence about it”. This means that it must not be in the public domain already and it must not be trivial;
   
   
2. The defendant has obtained the information in circumstances involving an obligation of confidence;
   
   
3. There is actual or threatened misuse of that information to your detriment;
   
   
4. It’s in the public interest for the courts to stop the information being published.

Information has to be true to be protected, although if part of the information is true and part of it is false, the court may protect all of it.

Injunctions are granted commonly to stop a breach of confidence. The court can also grant a declaration that a person breached the terms of a confidentiality agreement by publishing the information.