A London agent has issued High Court proceedings against its former head of sales and lettings who left last year to start his own business nearby.
Award-winning My London Home is seeking undisclosed damages and the return of client information from Joseph Cadman, who now runs Prime London Residential.
My London Home, which yesterday declined to comment to Eye, is understood to be claiming that a client list is in Cadman’s possession.
However, Cadman totally denied having taken any database or electronic imaging from his previous employers, based in Westminster.
Cadman confirmed that legal action had been started.
He said: “However, we are in talks and I am very much hoping that we will reach an out of court settlement.
“I am trying to come up with a realistic solution as a gesture of good will – for example, I could offer a binding indemnity where I agree not to deal with some of my clients.”
Cadman went on: “In retrospect, we would have done better to have had these conversations about restrictions before I left.
“I have turned away clients whose names I recognised, but some of these people are clients who have used several estate agents in the past.
“However, the fact is that in today’s world, one is very traceable, particularly through LinkedIn, and I have had a lot of people contact me independently.”
Cadman was with MyLondonHome – which last month was named best small lettings agency in the UK in the ESTAS – from July 2006 to April 2013.
MyLondonHome was founded in 2002 by Steven Herd, its managing director.
I had a similar conundrum when I recruited a well-respected lettings agent for my previous lettings agency, who had worked for a couple of other lettings agents previously in the town. There is nothing wrong with advertising an individual in the form of a 'welcome to our agency' in local press releases, etc, for vendors to 'find' such an individual and give them their business. That is not the same as making initial contact with a previous-company's client and asking them to jump ship.
Also, if an 'employee' also has clients when they arrive at a new place of work, he/she CAN take these clients with them when he/she moves to another agency. Only clients who are generated by an agency's own marketing and service delivery are deemed to 'belong' to that agency and must not be independently approached by a departing individual.
Confidentiality Agreements and also Non-Competing Agreements signed at the time of initial offer and agreement of Employment or Consultancy Contracts or Agreements prevents such things as described above from happening.
When I sold my lettings agency, I agreed to a 10-year non-operating agreement in lettings within a 25 mile radius of my original company, to give confidence to the new owners I would not set up once more and 'steal' the clients.
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Hindsight is a wonderful thing – the article says Joseph Cadman said he should have had conversations about restrictions before he left.
The crazy thing is that both could have gone their seperate ways and when opportunities arose collaborated in deals rather than compete.
Everyday agents sub the two biggest sub agents in the UK (RM and Z) part corporate backed. When are agents going to see the true value that B2B is far better than B2C alone.
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Why would you look at a compromise for wealthy clients when you are looking at starting up your business if you have not done anything wrong…….
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