In the latest round of their battle against Andy Richards and Skillsite Ltd at the High Court of Justice, JobServe Ltd, has been awarded an historic decision that will strike fear into the directors of any Job Board who have built a database with anything other than legitimately registered CVs.
The legal battle began back in November 2001 after JobServe had discovered that Skillsite, through RDL (now in administration), were systematically using candidatesí CV data sent from JobServe to RDL, to substantially bolster Skillsiteís new candidate database. JobServe complained to the Court that this was an infringement of its database rights and was successful in gaining various undertakings whereby Skillsite was denied any use of the candidate information it had effectively stolen from JobServe.
As part of its ongoing monitoring processes, JobServe discovered that Skillsiteís database continued to hold thousands of CVs that it was restrained from making available, in breach of itís undertakings to the Court. Despite a number of stern warnings and the fact that a breach of a Court undertaking can lead to imprisonment, Skillsiteís directors had not taken appropriate steps to comply with its undertakings, so its database was not clean.
This was a grave mistake by Andy Richards and Richard Hall who must have seriously underestimated JobServe. JobServe knew that the strongest remedy available to it in order to galvanize Richards and Hall into taking the undertakings seriously was to launch Committal and Sequestration Proceedings, which it did at the end of October 2003.
At the recent hearing which occupied the Court for two days, after receiving evidence including oral testimony, the Honourable Mr Justice Lewison determined that Richards, Hall and Skillsite were, beyond reasonable doubt (the criminal standard of proof), in contempt of Court. As a result of hearing their mitigation, and their protests that their longstanding failures to comply had been attributable to their alleged misunderstanding of the undertakings, and having given their apologies to the Court and expressed their regret for their acts and defaults having regard to the Learned Judgeís findings that they were guilty, Richards, Hall and Skillsite escaped without a prison sentence or any other penalty on this first occasion on which they had been found guilty of contempt. They were ordered to pay JobServeís substantial legal costs of the application on an indemnity basis.
Robbie Cowling of JobServe said, ìThis matter should have been dead and buried two years ago. It would never have got this far had Andy Richards and Richard Hall or any other director of Skillsite complied correctly in the first place. They seemed to believe they were able to misuse and freely disclose candidatesí personal data and expected to get away with it. JobServeís use of its database rights, and the diligence of the Court, prevented this. I truly hope they comply now or theyíll be back before the Court again. Should that be the case, perhaps next time they had better take their toothbrushî.
Justice for JobServeís Job Seekers
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