A wedding magazine publisher, Mr Michael Hogan, yesterday failed to secure a High Court order restraining two of his former employees from setting up a rival wedding magazine entitled Weddings Irish Style.
Mr Hogan had claimed his own magazine, Irish Wedding and New Home, has a circulation of 5,500. While refusing the injunction application, Mr Justice Smyth said the defendants had nothing to be proud of in the way they had gone about the publication of their magazine. The way they operated had the hallmarks of stealth, he said.
However, granting the injunction would be tantamount to determining the issue between the parties, and he would therefore refuse it. He returned the matter to September 10th when a date for a full hearing of proceedings may be fixed.
On the question of a delay in informing Mr Hogan about the rival publication, the judge said he did not see them as having waited until the last minute, but saw the delay arising from a lack of frankness by the defendants.
Mr Hogan is a company director of INK Publishing Ltd and had sought the interlocutory injunction against Zest Publishing Ltd, Ms Jacinta O'Brien and Ms Martina O'Loughlin. In an affidavit, Mr Hogan said he began publishing a magazine entitled Irish Wedding and New Home in 1996 and there had been about six issues each year. He employed Ms Jacinta O'Brien on January 1st, 2001, to act as editor and on February 5th, 2001, hired Ms Martina O'Loughlin.
In September 2002 he discussed the issue of a suitable offer for his magazine with Ms O'Brien and detailed sensitive information was revealed to her. He also became aware of Ms O'Loughlin's interest in working with Ms O'Brien to acquire ownership of the title, but no formal offer was made.
He then became aware of rumours last April that Ms O'Brien was in the process of setting up a magazine. She denied this. On April 25th, Ms O'Loughlin resigned from her position with the magazine.
By May and June last questions were being asked by companies who placed advertisements with his magazine regarding the future of his publication. At this stage, both Ms O'Brien and Ms O'Loughlin had left him to set up their own magazine. He was surprised and upset to find the proposed new magazine was similar to his own and was likely to mislead the public into believing it was his publication.
The court was told the new magazine was due to be launched last night and Mr Hogan said that would do irreparable damages to the sales of his magazine. Counsel for the defendants said their magazine had a different layout, a different size, the type face was different and the contents were completley different. If the plaintiff secured an injunction, it would put the defendants out of business.