Insurance Firm Sues Ex-Broker for Stealing Clients

An insurance brokerage sued to prevent an employee from taking some of the firm’s clients with him after he resigned. To get an injunction, i.e., order preventing the employee from taking the accounts, the firm had to show it would suffer “irreparable harm.” The firm would lose money if the injunction weren’t granted, the court acknowledged. But the loss could be quantified and recovered as damages if the firm ultimately won the lawsuit against the employee for violating his restrictive covenant. So the court refused to issue an injunction that would have frozen the accounts until the lawsuit ended [Hub Int’l (Richmond Auto Mall) Ltd. v. Redcliffe, [2012] B.C.J. No. 1812, Aug. 30, 2012].