EQUITY & TRUST I

LAWS 3330

INJUNCTION
AND
BREACH OF CONFIDENCE
 DEFINITION
• Confidential information is defined as one which is the
object of an obligation of confidence and is used to cover all
information of a confidential character.
• Any information which is not supposed to share with public
and secretive in nature, e.g. medical information of a patient.
• Injunction will be available to restrain breach of confidence
arising out of:
(a) Personal secret or information;
(b) Commercial, trade or business secret;
(c) Public and government secret;
(d) Literary and artistic information.
 CONT.
• Seager v. Copydex Ltd [1967] 2 All ER 415 (Commercial): Mr.
Seager had invented a patented carpet grip which he
manufactured and marketed under the trade mark ‘Klent’. There
were negotiations between Mr. Seager and Copydex over a
proposal for Copydex to market the Klent. One of the issues in
the negotiations was the price and, thus, Mr. Seager disclosed to
them an alternative design of grip which could be produced
cheaper. D had manufactured a carpet grip, honestly and
unconsciously making use of that confidential information. The
alternative design was not covered by Mr. Seager’s patent.
• Held: The court upheld Mr. Seager’s claim for breach of an
equitable obligation of confidence, holding that Copydex must
have unconsciously made use of the information which Mr.
Seager gave them. The court ordered damages.
• Lord Denning said: “The law on this subject does not depend on
any implied contract. It depends on the broad principle of equity
that he who has received information in confidence shall not
take unfair advantage of it. He must not make use of it to the
prejudice of him who gave it without obtaining his consent”.
 CONT.

• Coco v. AN Clark (Engineering) Ltd [1969] RPC 41

(Commercial): A claim was made for breach of confidence
in respect of technical information whose value was
commercial.
• Three essential elements to a cause of breach of confidence
were established:
(a) the information must be confidential in nature;
(b) the information must have been communicated in
circumstances importing an obligation of confidence;
and
(c) there must be an unauthorised use of information to
the detriment of the person communicating it.
 CONT.

• Argyll v. Argyll [1967] Ch 302 at 332 (personal): An

interlocutory injunction was granted to protect against
the revelation of marital confidences, and the newspaper
to which the Duke had communicated such information
about the Duchess was restrained from publishing it. The
concept of confidentiality was applied so as, in effect, to
protect the privacy of communications between a
husband and wife.
 CONT.
• Lion Laboratories Ltd v. Evans [1985] QB 562 (public/government):
Lion Laboratories manufactured and marketed the Lion Intoximeter
which was used by the police for measuring blood alcohol levels of
motorists. Two ex-employees approached the Press with four
documents taken from Lion. The documents indicated that the Lion
Intoximeter had faults which could have resulted in a significant
number of motorists being wrongly convicted. Lion started
proceedings against their ex-employees and Express Newspapers
Limited to restrain disclosure of the information as to the faults. They
obtained an interlocutory injunction restraining breach of confidence
and infringement of copyright. The employee appealed.
• Held: The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal by stating that it would
have been a breach of confidence to publish the information in them
and an infringement of copyright to publish the documents
themselves UNLESS there were defences which permitted in the
public interest. The information contained in the documents was so
important to the public as to outweigh Ps’ interests and that,
accordingly, the court was entitled to overrule the judge's exercise of
discretion and would permit publication of specified documents.
THANK YOU