High Court orders return of the Mack

Computer 2000 saddled with legal bill as former deputy MD is given the go-ahead to carry on at Ilion.

Computer 2000 was left with egg on its face after it lost its High the go-ahead to carry on at Ilion. Court battle to prevent its former deputy managing director, Allan Mack, from working at networking specialist Ilion.

The German distributor decided to take court action against Mack in September, despite the fact that he had announced his departure in July and had already been working at Ilion for more than six weeks (PC Dealer, 9 July).

But Mack told PC Dealer this week that the judge had ruled in Ilion's favour and had thrown out C2000's case. C2000 had asked for a restraint to prevent Mack working for a rival distributor until 22 December and sought reassurances that Mack kept information private about Frontline's matters.

Mack said: 'I am suitably delighted with the outcome. I am mightily pleased and relieved.'

He added that he thought C2000's court action was futile and unnecessary as Ilion was not a direct competitor of its UK subsidiary Frontline.

At a closed hearing held on 24 October, the judge threw out C2000's claims but ruled that Mack must protect confidential information, which Mack claimed he had every intention of doing regardless of the court action.

The judge also ruled that C2000 had to pay the full costs of the legal battle, estimated to be about #100,000.

It is not known whether C2000 is planning to appeal against the ruling but it would still have to pay Ilion's legal costs. C2000 was not available for comment. Frontline refused to comment, claiming that the court action was being handled by its parent company.

At the time of Mack's departure in July, Frontline had described his move as amicable and unconnected with Frontline's restructure, which saw Graeme Watt and Mack assume the roles of managing director and deputy managing director respectively, from their previous positions of joint MD.