By Paul Kunert
1 August 2008
Clarity Technology, owner of Equip, has made a
legal claim for damages against Grahame Smee, the former managing director of
its networking division, following allegations that he broke an
anti-competition clause after leaving the business.
According to a filing lodged with the High Court,
Clarity, which rebranded to Horizon Technology before it was acquired by Avnet this year, is claiming lost
earnings amounting to at least £140,000.
It is claimed that Smee, who transferred with
Equip when it was sold to Clarity in February 2006 and left in November that
year, signed a contract or “covenant” that any company he subsequently set up
or worked for would not deal with Equip’s nine Primary Suppliers until 2009.
The document stated that in December 2006, Smee
set up Cohort technology issuing 9,000 shares at £1 each. In March the
following year, he took 799 shares, and split the majority shareholding – 1,000
shares – between associates Dr Philip Brown and Ian Gilbey, though he retained
actual control of Cohort.
Clarity alleged in the filing that since Smee had
no need for financial support to launch Cohort, “it is a fair inference” that
he gave the majority shareholding to Brown and Gilbey because he perceived that
the firm could then deal with any of the nine vendors and avoid liability under
the covenant.
The breach came about in March this year,
according to the filing, when Cohort began to deal with one of the nine –
Ingrian Network Inc. It added that even though Smee claims he did not make
personal contact with the vendor as it was signed by his employees, he was in
breach of covenant.
In its filing, Clarity claimed it then learnt
Ingrian intended to remove its technical support services contract but
suggested to the vendor that it might at least retain the distributorship of
its networking products.
However, Smee is alleged to have told an Ingrian
employee that Cohort could not work with the vendor while Clarity still held
the contract due to the anti-competitive agreement in place.
“[Smee] encouraged Ingrian not to allow [Clarity]
to continue to distribute Ingrian’s products and instead place the work with
Cohort,” the filing stated.
It continued, “By reason of the matters aforesaid
[Clarity] has suffered loss and damage.” It estimates the losses for technical
support services at £140,000, with several customers yet to be factored into
the situation. In addition, Clarity claimed Ingrian was intending to outsource
work to it on behalf of resellers.
Graham Smee was unable to comment on the matter at
the time of posting.
