Bullet Proof Your Business Today’s Team Member – Tomorrow’s Competitor – Case 2

Our client was an accommodation telemarketing company with over thirty telemarketing employees. The business had been established by our client over five years previous and contained what appeared to be a loyal band of core employees.

Our client attended work one morning to discover that her second in charge had left the business, taken four of her most senior employees and had set up in opposition down the road.

It soon became apparent to our client that the senior employees had taken a large chunk of the company’s computer database and were actively canvassing previous clients for new business, inferring that they were still affiliated with our clients business.

We were engaged by our client to gather intelligence and evidence of the actions of the ex employees with a view to proving that the ex employees had stolen our client’s database of previous purchasers, were giving prospective clients the impression that they were our client’s business and were utilizing our client’s unique systems of operation including proforma documents.

We were subsequently put together an action plan which was agreed to by the client and her legal advisors and put into action within 48hrs of the defection of the senior employees.

We attacked the situation on a number of fronts. Firstly covert surveillance was immediately commenced on the operating premises of the new business. This surveillance identified all persons connected with the new business including a number of persons who the client did not know were involved with the business and were in fact moonlighting from our client’s business. Identification video footage was obtained of all persons connected with the new business.

Secondly covert operative’s f conducted a number of pretext approaches to the telemarketers of the rogue business. The covert operatives posing as prospective customers made telephone appointments and subsequently recorded the full marketing spiel of the business on electronic recording devices. The pretext was followed through and proforma forms used by the business were obtained under the guise of a legitimate transactions.

It became abundantly clear as a result of these inquiries that the rogue business had copied exactly the business systems of our client’s business, down to the use of the exact forms our client had devised in their business. The rogue business was even using a name similar to our client’s trading name.

We also made overt approaches to previous purchasers from our clients business with a view of determining if they had been approached by the rogue business. These approaches were initially conducted via telephone and centered on previous customers of the stolen database. These inquiries revealed that the rogue business was systematically contacting people from the stolen database, were posing as representatives of our client’s company and were attempting to sell further products to these persons. Formal statements were obtained from these persons and these statements were supplied to our client and supported the assertions our client had made.

We subsequently compiled all material in a ‘full brief of evidence’ to our client and her legal advisors. Using this evidence our client’s legal advisors sought Orders for the search and seizure of company property from the rogue business’s operating premises and residential premises of the senior ex employee. As a result of these orders a large amount of documents and computer equipment were photographed, documented and seized. Forensic examination of the computer equipment identified that our client’s database of clients was in fact recorded in electronic format on a number of computer hard drives.

Our evidence was later used to shut down the rogue business. The evidence obtained throughout the investigation proved the linchpin in a successful legal action by our client.

We subsequently conducted a risk assessment of our client’s business with a view to tightening up procedures with respect to employees, intellectual property collection, confidentiality etc.

As a result of this analysis the business implemented the following actions:

1. A Company Ethics Policy was introduced with relevant training in the policy document.
2. Staff Inductions were conducted with all new staff members. Such inductions included counselling in relation to staff obligations and the expectations of the employer.
3. Confidentiality and Non Competition Agreements with all staff and contractors.
4. Implementation of Computer and Document Security policies in a bid to stop the future theft of Intellectual Property.

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