Padkohe Pty Limited v Deborah Jayne Fletcher

Padkohe Pty Limited brought an action against Deborah Jayne Fletcher in the Federal Court of Australia. The plaintiff alleged that the defendant, a former employee, had breached fiduciary duties by exploiting a commercial opportunity introduced by the plaintiff for her own benefit, while the plaintiff was unable to exploit the opportunity itself. The plaintiff sought a constructive trust over the profits made by the defendant from the opportunity and an interlocutory injunction to prevent the defendant from continuing to exploit the opportunity. The primary legal issues were whether the defendant had breached fiduciary duties by exploiting the opportunity for her own benefit, and if so, whether an interlocutory injunction should be granted to prevent further exploitation of the opportunity.

The court found that the defendant had indeed breached fiduciary duties by exploiting the commercial opportunity for her own benefit, as the opportunity was not available to the plaintiff. The court held that the defendant had acted in breach of her fiduciary obligations by taking advantage of the opportunity introduced by the plaintiff. The court also found that the risk that the interlocutory injunction might establish a breach of the condition of the defendant's licence did not outweigh the balance of convenience in favour of granting the injunction. The court held that the risk of breach of the defendant's licence condition was not sufficient to deny the interlocutory injunction.

The court granted the interlocutory injunction and ordered the defendant to account for the profits made from the exploitation of the commercial opportunity. The court held that the plaintiff was entitled to a constructive trust over the profits made by the defendant from the opportunity. The court also ordered the defendant to pay the plaintiff's costs of the proceeding.