An injunction may be granted if serious issues exist, and the balance of convenience favors the applicant, particularly to prevent irreparable harm.

[1] This is a Notice of Application (L3) by the Plaintiff for an interim injunction and consequential relief against the Defendants pending the disposal of the main suit. Initially, an Ad Interim Injunction was granted by consent when L3 came up for hearing on 14 January 2011. Subsequently, it was heard inter-partes. Via L3 the Plaintiff, briefly, seeks the following reliefs:

"(1) An injunction order pursuant to O 29 of the Rules of 2012 and/or the inherent jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, restraining the Defendants and each of them by themselves, their officers, servants, agentsor otherwise howsoever from working with any of the following principals for a period of one (1) calendar year from the date of an order of this Honourable Court: and

(2) That the costs of this application be borne by the Defendants"

Facts

[2] The suit filed by the Plaintiffs against the Defendants is basically for breach of contract of employment and breach of good faith and fidelity by the 1st Defendant while against the 2nd Defendant it was for unlawfully using confidential information belonging to the Plaintiff disclosed by the 1st Defendant in breach of his duty of confidence to the Plaintiff.

[3] In this case, the 1st Defendant was a former employee of the Plaintiff which was in the business of trading in chemicals (specifically personal care chemicals) produced by chemical companies from around the world for customers here in Malaysia and in Singapore. These international chemical companies have been defined as the Plaintiff's "Principals".

[4] The 1st Defendant became an employee of the Plaintiff on 20 August 2001 and rose in the ranks until he became the General Manager of the Plaintiff on 19 February 2013. The 1st Defendant was also appointed as a company director of the Plaintiff on 7 July 2006.

[5] On 09 June 2015, the 1st Defendant tendered his resignation and left the Plaintiff's employment on 08 July 2015. It is the Plaintiff's case that the 1st Defendant then started a rival and competing business via the 2nd Defendant.

[6] It was further alleged that in doing so, he started contacting several of the Plaintiff's Principals, which included Ajinomoto (Singapore) Pte Ltd ("Ajinomoto"), Bioland Co Ltd ("Bioland"), Lucas Meyer Cosmetics Canada ("Lucas Meyer"), Southern Cross Botanicals Pty Ltd ("Southern Cross"), and Terry Laboratories Ins. (Terry Labs").

[7] According to the Plaintiff, as its General Manager ('GM'), the 1st Defendant was not only in charge of sales and in contact with all of the Plaintiff's Principals. He had access to the Plaintiff's confidential information, which included the various distribution agreements entered into with the respective Principals. With these agreements the 1st Defendant could as certain crucial information such as the Plaintiff's sales margins and the expiry of these agreements with certain Principals.

[8] In view of the above situation, the Plaintiff engaged the services of an independent professional accounting firm, ie KPMG Management and Risk Consulting Sdn Bhd ('KPMG'), to perform imaging and analysis work on a laptop computer that was used by the 1st Defendant when he was with the Plaintiff ('the HP Computer').

[9] Pursuant to the Plaintiff's terms of reference KPMG released a report entitled "Summary of Work Performed" dated 10 December 2015 ("KPMG Report") where:

(1) KPMG's review indicated that the 1st Defendant was the primary user of the HP Computer and no other user profil