Jobserve in court with RDL Group Plc and Skillsite.co.uk

Following a recent case in the High Court between Jobserve Ltd and RDL Group Plc, the way the IT Recruitment Industry conducts its affairs is under examination.

On 1 February 2002, Jobserve applied to the High Court for injunctions to regulate RDL Group Plcís use of CVs legitimately bought by the Group from Jobserve, together with the use of advertisements on Jobserveís website.

From 1996 until November 2001, RDL had subscribed to Jobserveís CV service whereby subscribers receive regular downloads of Jobserve candidate CVs. RDL paid 500 per month for the CV service and the Group has spent considerable sums (about 500,000 per annum) advertising IT vacancies on Jobserveís website over the same period. RDL is part of RDL Group Plc, which consists of a number of agencies. RDL is also associated with Skillsite.co.uk, an online site similar to Jobserve. CVs purchased from Jobserve were utilised by the Group and were accessible by other agencies from the Skillsite website.

Jobserve applied to the High Court for injunctions to prohibit RDL from:
- Giving any other Group company or Skillsite access to the CV download
- Supplying the CVs to skillsite agency clients

Jobserve claims its standard terms of business prohibit customers from making CVs available to agency clients. This would mean RDL could not serve its Managed Agency client base. Managed Agencies are a common form of recruitment whereby the end client employs an agency to liase with all other agencies and accounts for a fair proportion of RDLís revenues. Andy Richards, managing director of RDL Group, says ìThis means that Managed Agencies, if they want access to candidates who have sent their CV to Jobserve, must subscribe directly to Jobserveís CV service as they will not be able to source these candidates through appointed agencies such as RDL, as has traditionally been the practice.î

In court on 1 February, RDL challenged Jobserveís claims. The Judge, Deputy Judge Kevin Garnett QC, granted the injunction sought by Jobserve to prevent RDL from allowing other Group companies and Skillsite access to Jobserveís CVs. But the Judge refused to grant an injunction precluding RDL from releasing Jobserveís CVs to agency clients. This last point ñ RDLís right to supply CVs to agency clients ñ is however still a live issue: when the case comes to trial, Jobserve will again attempt to injunct RDL from supplying CVs to agency clients.

In relation to advertisements from Jobserve appearing on Skillsiteís website, Deputy Judge Garnett QC ruled that Skillsite should not copy ads from Jobserve, even though advertisers gave RDL permission to do so.

www.jobserve.com