setting up a company

thepinkladez_2

The company i worked for has recently gone bust. I have decided to start up on my own. I have all contact details of clients and wondering am i able to call these clients to tell them i have set up alone?? does this breech data protection? obviously doing this may affect price the company i worked for could be sold at as i would have potentially taken clients. I know this sound rather harsh to do this but i feel that if i dont someone else will try to poach the old clients anyway. any help much appreciated!

LittleVoice

You may well have already breached your employment contract and data protection regulations if you have taken this data from your employer.

Is it a small company? Are there administrators? Could you make an offer to legitimately acquire the information?

teamgb

they can not touch you for whats in your head, so if you have a good memory go for it. good luck

loveandlight

Posted by teamgb
they can not touch you for whats in your head, so if you have a good memory go for it. good luck

Until its done to you that is. I'm currently in the process of buying a small business that is struggling. The only asset is the client base. Nobody knows the business is being sold. Having read this thread, I will now definitely make sure through my lawyers that I am protected against the staff doing stuff like this. I was so focused on watching the sellers to make sure they didn't rip me off, it never occurred to me that I should also be watching out for the staff as well. So I thank you for making me aware of this.

LittleVoice is correct. Check that you can approach them legally first. Start as you mean to go on. Otherwise these things have a habit of backfiring and someone may do it to you one day.

olly300

In theory the administrators or who ever takes over the company's concerns could sue you if it breaches your employment contract.

In practice they may not bother depending on who you are, how specialised your industry is, and what your job is as a one-person company cannot supply the same services as a larger company.

I now know plenty of people who have worked for a client or poached an ex-employers client in full breach of their employment contract, and with their ex-employer's full knowledge.

They already had a relationship with the client and made it known that they were looking for work leaving the client to approach them.

Debt_Free_Chick

teamgb wrote: »

they can not touch you for whats in your head, so if you have a good memory go for it. good luck

Oh yes they can "touch you for what's in your head". Most companies assert intellectual property rights over "information" these days - so that any knowledge you acquire or use during the course of your job is not "in your head" - it's in the company's assets"!

Nothing to do with data protection - a little to do with confidentiality - but everything to do with intellectual property.

lazymoezy

Debt_Free_Chick - Your spot on. Companies have ways to protect themselves, dont think you can go around these rules somehow.

I remember learning about this back in college :rolleyes:

Pennywise

OK, yes it is strictly the case that the employee shouldn't use "what's in his head" and could in theory be prosecuted or legally prevented from doing so, but in reality, this is rarely applied unless the stakes are huge as it costs a lot of money in legal and court fees.

One of my previous employers who were a large firm of accountants thought they had the right "wording" in their contracts of employment to prevent staff taking their clients, but the office manager of a satellite branch actually stole over half the clients and left overnight - literally working in the office one day - empty desk and no-where to be seen the next. He had apparently been "grooming" his chosen clients for years to find out which ones would stay with him if he left and started his own practice and had been photocopying files etc for months beforehand. Despite using one of the leading lawyers in the area, they couldn't touch him!

When I've left accountancy practices, I have been careful never to actually approach and poach clients, but each time, a small number of clients have sought me out and asked me to continue to be their accountant. Morally, I would never go as far as to take files or databases away with me, and would never approach a past client directly, but at the same time, I have always told my clients where I was going, being careful not to suggest they come with me, perhaps in the hope they would take the initiative themselves.

Despite the legal and moral background, this is the way the world goes round. It isn't what you know, it is who you know. Clients and customers always have and always will follow you. Big business is no different to small. I would imagine that loads of visitors to this site have followed their favourite hairdresser from one salon to another - it's just life.

The important thing is for the business to minimise the potential damage. If the business as a whole is good, the customers/clients won't feel reliant on one individual and may be less inclined to follow them. Never allow a single employee to get too closely involved with any client - make sure that other employees are also important to the client, so that they are dealt with by a team rather than a person.