A 17-year insider, a 'Secret Group' chat and a rival business

Peter Williams worked for PGA Laminating, a family-run Victorian maker of plastic film for food packaging, from June 2000 until 17 November 2017. He was the owner's brother-in-law, and as business development manager he looked after PGA's customer accounts. From July 2017, while still employed, he began working with a PGA sales contractor and a supplier's employee to set up a competing business.

In an email headed 'General starting', sent from his personal Gmail account, Mr Williams told the others they had '2 clients that we believe can and will move quickly'. One was Don Smallgoods, which provided about half of PGA's business. While he worked on PGA's tender to Don Smallgoods, he sent the contractor PGA's prices and volumes, and the new venture lodged a tender designed to undercut PGA. The three also kept a WhatsApp group called 'Secret Group'.

Two days before he resigned, Mr Williams sent another customer, Northside, a letter putting PGA's prices up; the court found he had suggested the rise to make PGA less competitive, and Northside later took its business elsewhere. The day before he resigned, he removed a large volume of files from around his desk after hours; he said they were mostly personal, and the court could not say what was taken. A laptop he used for PGA work, which he had reported stolen, came back to PGA with all its files deleted.

Justice Beach found that Mr Williams breached his employment contract, his duties under ss 182 and 183 of the Corporations Act 2001 (Cth), his duty of confidence and his fiduciary duties, and infringed PGA's copyright. His claim to part-own the business did not help: even an owner could not take the company's information for himself. The court was not satisfied that his breaches of fiduciary duty were fraudulent and dishonest. The contractor and his company were liable as accessories to the statutory and confidence breaches.