Headhunter Ciscom penalised after own goal

Ciscom has been forced to pay TNS Distribution £47,000 in compensation for head-hunting its staff and faces another claim for £19,000 and legal fees estimated to be more than £10,000.

The Teddington-based reseller was caught out by a clause in its own terms and conditions - which has since been removed - which stated that Ciscom promised to pay the equivalent of six months' salary in the event of it head-hunting staff from companies it does business with.

TNS lost two sales people and two engineers to Ciscom in September 1998, but the distributor then realised it was entitled to claim because it had started buying memory from the reseller.

The case came to court last month and the judge found in favour of TNS.

Richard Hann, administration manager at TNS, said: "We had heard that Ciscom was bringing in memory and TNS wanted to get involved, but Ciscom wouldn't deal with us until we formally acknowledged their terms and conditions."

Ciscom argued that because the four TNS employees had agreed to join Ciscom before the two companies had started trading, their terms and conditions did not apply.

However, the judge ruled it was the date that the employees handed in their notices at TNS that counted - three weeks after accepting the job offers - and that was after TNS had accepted Ciscom's terms and conditions.

Hann suggested there may be other firms in the channel that have lost staff to Ciscom, but Annabelle Hassell, marketing manager at Ciscom, said: "There are no other companies in a position to make the same claim."

Hassell said none of the staff who joined Ciscom from Landis and Ilion, most notably Ciscom financial director Dick Haynes, were covered in the same way. "That is a totally different situation," she said.