Pattrol, hope you will return your money back somehow! The company you ar talkin about are not only cheaters, they are real outlaws, they managed to say foolish lies that they recieved Cyprus CySEC Licence, but they had never owned that licence. So they also lie to Cyprus government, to my opinion the CEO of Broco need to be judged.
Here are the proof of my words, sorry for big text, but you have to know the truth:
AT THE LIMASSOL DISTRICT COURT
Before: T. Psara - Miltiadou, President of the District Court
Case Number 3857/2009
Between:
Windsor Brokers Ltd from Limassol
Plaintiff
and
- Naji El Afifi, from Limassol
- Broco Investments Inc., from the Republic
of Mauritious having a registered branch office in Limassol
Defendant
(Application for the issue of a preservation order dated 8/9/2009)
21/12/2009
For the applicants: Mr. Thrasyvoulou
For the respondents: Mr. Melas (for the utterance of Ms Assiotou)
INTERIM DECISION
Following a unilateral application, the Court issued the following order:
“A. That a be and is hereby issued a prohibitive interlocutory order prohibiting defendants 1 and/or 2, as well as their servants and/or representatives of defendant 2 to use, and/or publish and/or utilize either on their own behalf or on behalf of others and/or to disclose or supply to others with any trade secrets, confidential information, inventions, technical information, know-how or any other proprietary data belonging wholly or in part to the plaintiff and/or its clients until the proceedings numbered and titled as hereinabove are brought before the court and/or until further order by the Court”.
A remedy is also requested according to appeal B for the issue of an order prohibiting defendant 2 and/or any persons acting on behalf thereof to do any act similar to the act of inducing the breach of contract by the plaintiff’s employers.
The application is based on the affidavit of Mr. Eitah, executive manager of the plaintiff which is a company incorporated in Cyprus in 2001 and deals with the provision of investment services, having approximately 75 employees and thousands of customers at international financial markets in its field of activity worldwide.
In this affidavit it is stated that the company keeps records containing confidential data regarding its clients mainly for the purpose of selling and purchasing financial products.
According to the applicants’ version, during the last eight years the defendant was employed by the plaintiff and prior to the termination of his employment he held the position of Manager of the Own Account Department, whose duties include the management of own funds of the plaintiff exceeding USD 10.000.000, and was responsible for investing those funds in international exchange markets.
The latest employment contract signed between the plaintiff and defendant 1 dated 2 January 2008 is attached herewith as Evidence 1.
Plaintiff 1 submitted his resignation on 18 June 2009 with two months notice (Evidence 2) claiming that he had been offered a job in Libya and that he was reluctant in accepting this job offer, and that he would move abroad in order to overcome economic problems he was going through at that point. This behaviour seemed very suspicious; further at the beginning of July 2009 the company was informed by an employee that defendant 2 requested from the said employee certain information and copies of documents not related with his duties. Since then, all conversations conducted through the plaintiff’s telecommunication system and every message sent or received through the plaintiff’s computer systems were put under surveillance.
For security purposes as well as for the purpose of providing quality services the plaintiff operates a recording system of telephone conversations between employees and clients, while according to the employment contract for duties including the use of electronic telecommunication (Evidence 1 paragraph 14), the plaintiff reserves the right to monitor the activities of its employees when using its computer appliances. The surveillance of the computer appliance belonging to the plaintiff and used by Defendant 1 was assigned to a computer systems private company and it was ascertained that defendant 1 was transmitting to defendant 2 confidential information belonging to the plaintiff without being entitled to do so.
The affidavit of Mr. Eitah also provides particular evidence regarding the “transmitted data”. Further, it is claimed that defendant 1 in cooperation with defendant 2 put a plan into action with the intention to induce other employees to be employed by defendant 2. They even employed a person named Feras, who received a salary both from the plaintiff and from defendant 2.
For the above-named reasons the plaintiff reported defendant 1 on 23/7/2009 at the Limassol Criminal Investigation Department for breach of the Processing of Personal Data Law. Then he was arrested and detained. Further investigations have shown that defendant 2 had no licence for providing inventment services and does not operate under the supervision of the Capital Market Commission.
The deponent of ends his affidavit as follows:
“According to the information in my possession, Naji acting under the instructions of Broco a) intercepted the names and the financial background of Windsor’s clients and transmitted the same to Broco during his employment at Windsor b) selected a number of wealthy clients with the intention to let Broco get in contact with them, c) provided Broco with clients’ personal data regarding their financial background and investments and d) copied and delivered to Broco electronic data and manuals of Windsor, e) provided Broco with information which does not fall into the public domain and f) copied and delivered to Broco the marketing procedures of Windsor.
All information delivered to Broco by Naji are considered confidential information and for this purpose I draw the attention of this Honorable Court to the paragraph 16 of Evidence 1.
The damages of Windsor resulting from the disclosure of information delivered to Broco by Naji are such that they can cause Windsor a serious danger of losing intangible assets and a great deal of its goodwill and reputation.
In accordance with the Processing of Personal Data (Protection of Individuals) Law and the contracts entered into between Windsor and its clients, Windsor is bound to keep under safe custody all confidential information that comes into its possession regarding its clients especially in case of sensitive data and personal information. Therefore, following the disclosure of such information to Broco, Windsor is now exposed to the probability of facing breach of duty claims from its clients and consequently paying huge compensations especially when such claim is made at a Court in the United States where the compensation amounts to be adjudicated in such cases may be immense.
In order to protect its clients’ interests and to abate the loss and/or damage, Windsor has a duty to limit the disclosure of information regarding its clients and the company itself using every legal means, including this application for the issue of preservations orders.
It is evident that Broco, the employees and officers thereof conspired together with Naji in order to acquire information and data belonging to Windsor for the purpose of using the same for their own profit.
Being aware of the existence of employment contracts between Windsor and its employees and of the fact that Windsor had invested time and resources to train such employees as financial investment brokers, Broco approached among others Naji, Feras and Nektaria Theodoridou, and by means of persuasion, inducement and otherwise, procured breach of employment contracts entered into with Windsor and therefore caused damage to Windsor.
Windsor was not in a position to apply to the Court at an earlier stage so to be provided with a prohibitive order, since the police investigation was completed just on Friday 4/9/2009, according to the information given by the police to our attorneys.
The police drew our attention to the possibility of losing a testimony and affecting the results of the investigation in case that for any reason the defendants would find out about the evidence and the testimony we had in our possession and later handed over to the police; so this prevented us from applying to the Court earlier”.
The objection of the defendants is based on the affidavits of defendant 1, V. Maltsev (Manager of defendant 2) and Nektaria Theodoridou (former employee of the plaintiff), who also deny the plaintiff’s allegations and give their own version of the facts.
The objection is based mainly upon the argument that the actual background alleged by the applicants does not exist and that the Limassol District Court has no jurisdiction over the case. According to the respondents, exclussive jurisdiction belongs to the Industrial Disputes Tribunal.
Mr. Melas suggested at this point that the competent court for any employment dispute is the Industrial Disputes Tribunal (see Art. 30 of the Law on Termination of Employment, Law 24/67 as amended). Access to the District Court is permitted only in cases where the employee’s claims exceed the amount of two years’ salaries (see Elbee Ltd., Application for registration permission certiorari and prohibition (1999) 1(A) A.A.Δ. 149 and Panayiotou v. Delta Sigma Artokoulouropoieio Ltd (2002) 1 A.A.Δ. 1381). Consequently, according to the allegation of Mr. Melas this Court has no jurisdiction over such dispute.
Further, a number of allegations in the affidavits in relation to the defendants gives a different version of the facts, on the basis of which the plaintiff is not entitled to be provided with the orders requested, since, although the abovementioned quitted their jobs at Windsor, nothing alleged by the latter has actually happened.
Mr. Thrasyvoulou is absolutely right, by referring to case T.A. Micrologic Comp. Consultants Ltd - v - Microsoft Corporation (2002) 1 A.A.Δ. 1802, that at the stage of examining the first and the second requirement subject to article 32 of Law 14/60, the question is whether there is a serious issue to be brought to court and whether it is probable that the plaintiff receives the proper remedy. And it must be noted that at this stage no proof of actual rights is required but serious indications for the probability of their existence.
So in the framework of examining the first and the second requirement it is noted that, at least as far as the allegation is concened that this court has no jurisdiction over the matter, the plaintiff is taking legal action not only against its former employee but also against defendant 2 and the claim seems, at least partly, to be relating to civil law delicts and primarily to an inducement of the plaintiff’s employees to breach of contract. Obviously the scope of the requested remedies, which in many ways concern
non-employees, relates to conspiracy, extraction, copy and utilization of programs or otherwise, exemplary and disciplinary compensations or otherwise, which at least prima facie fall into the jurisdiction of a District Court.
While examining the said requirements I cannot overlook the extensive allegations of the defendants in relation with the plaintiff’s attempt “to threaten” its employees in order to prevent them from quitting their jobs as part of a standard practice of unfair competition towards companies of similar sectors. However, within this framework the opinions given are not evaluated in the essence, as its has already been said many times. It has been explained that the existence of a serious matter to be brought to court nothing is taken for granted apart from a disputable case. To be able to identify in the evidence given that there are grounds for an actionable right.
In relation to the evident probability the plaintiff to be entitled to the remedies requested, it is considered that only one initial examination of the testimony is permissible for evaluation purposes of each party’s probative value.
I consider that in conjuction with the first and the second requirement the applicants provide every necessary evidence which they are able to support. Within this background of evidence, defendant 1 seems to be acting in relation with information belonging to the plaintiff due to his former employment at a very responsible post and that there is a connection between these activities and defendants 2, against which the plaintiff pleads that they used unfair practices in order to “allure the plaintiff’s employees” in favour of a competitive company and other similar things, as described in the plaintiff’s supportive affidavit. (see similar actionable rights relating to the disclosure of clients’ names to competitors where the position of a certain employer is considered to be a relational factor (see Kynixa Ltd - v - Hynes and other (2008) EWHC 1495, Roger Bullivant Ltd - v - Ellis (1987) 1 C.R 464).
In the framework of the abovementioned requirements detailed information is given to predicate “indications of rights” as explained in the case of Micrologic (as hereinabove).
In relation to the third requirement, what is mentioned in paragraph 25 ff. of Mr. Eitah’s Affidavit is a very important parameter of the case, namely there is a plea for damages for which remedies and compensation would not be sufficient.