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The men were ordered to abide by their employment agreements.
Four employees unhappy with their boss resigned without notice, left the company office and started a new company with clients of their former employer, the Labor Relations Authority has heard.
The four men’s new company appears to have been blocked after the Authority granted an urgent request to the former employee, requiring the men to comply with their employment agreements.
The men, Haig Flashoff, Donald Price, Raymond Taylor and Sean Glasspool all worked for NZ Technology Group Hawke’s Bay Ltd, which provides information and communication technology services to small and medium-sized businesses in Hawke’s Bay.
On September 7, each of the men wrote to the company saying they were resigning immediately and “I choose not to meet my termination period.”
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They had formed a new company, Engage Technology Ltd, and had told their old employer that they were going to accept all of their clients because they could not serve them.
Bradley Ambrose / Stuff
NZ Technology Group Hawke’s Bay Ltd provides information and communication technology services to small and medium-sized businesses in Hawke’s Bay. (File photo)
They said they were also taking assets like laptops, phones, and three vehicles, as the former employer would no longer need them.
In response, the company filed a Statement of Problem with the authority and requested urgent interdiction orders against the men, requiring them to comply with the provisions of their contracts, including the restriction of trade, the violation of confidentiality and the non-solicitation clauses. .
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How the Labor Relations Authority works.
The company told the Authority that the men’s actions had had a “devastating effect.” They had cleared its facilities and “had taken confidential information, passwords, security data and other equipment”, which means that it had no capacity to continue providing services.
The four men told the Authority that their dispute with the company was commercial and centered on the fact that the company did not comply with agreements to buy several other companies. It was not a labor dispute, they said.
NZ Technology Group Hawke’s Bay Ltd. offices in Napier.
A lawyer acting on behalf of the men said the company had no debatable case.
In a recently published decision, law enforcement officer Geoff O’Sullivan granted the company’s request for the injunction.
He said there was a strong and debatable case and “if the respondents’ have done what they are accused of having done, then that would appear to be a clear breach of the specific agreements contained in each of the labor agreements of the four respondents.”
He said the company stated that it had been left with empty premises, without employees, without assets and without the capacity to perform its services. He said his business was already at risk of being destroyed, and it certainly would be if the request was not granted.
O’Sullivan said that if a substantive hearing on the dispute at a later date were in favor of the company, it would likely be too late, as it would have suffered significant damage by then.
Despite the men’s assertions, there was a well-documented employment relationship and employment agreements between each of the four respondents “that in each case established specific contractual provisions that survived the termination of employment,” he said.
“Labor relations must be taken seriously,” O’Sullivan said.
It granted the provisional injunction and said it would be in effect until a substantive investigative meeting is held.
He ordered the four men to abide by the provisions of their contracts.
