Template:Confi injunctions

The argument runs that it might be hard to prove that you’ve lost any money as a result of a confidentiality breach, so you want to be sure that equitable remedies like injunctions ordering the other guy to keep his mouth shut – those, under English law, that do not technically arise under the law of contract – are available to you.

In theory, this makes sense: one enters a confidentiality agreement to buy another man’s silence, whether or not there are gains or losses to be had from his doing so — but in practice, it is largely nonsense — who ever sought an injunction on a confi? The better question to ask, we think, is why contractual damages are often an “inadequate” remedy/ Why? Because it is quite hard to prove loss through simple disclosure of confidential information. And why is it hard to prove that loss? Because, often, there won’t have been any.

Contractual damages generally compensate for actual loss, not to account for profits. If you can say you've suffered any loss from, say, disclosure of client lists, it will be consequential in nature, sufficiently speculative that courts are traditionally reluctant to award it, also presenting as it does uncomfortable questions as to causation: Was the reason you lost all that business to a competitor because your client list was disclosed, or because your product was inferior?