Corporate poaching will be on the minds of many people today following recent Supreme Court action. The Fin Review
reports that law firm Hunt & Hunt has sought an urgent court order
in the NSW Supreme Court to force four insurance partners to continue
working for the firm for another five months after they announced they
would leave to work for rival firm Ebsworth & Ebsworth, in a marked
departure from the usual practice of immediate departure to stop them
poaching clients and collecting sensitive information.

In other poaching news the Supreme Court has found that mortgage group
Aussie Home Loans imposed an unreasonable restraint on an employee by
preventing him from poaching staff for 12 months after leaving, reports
The Sydney Morning Herald , while The Daily Telegraph
reports that former employees of John Symond, the smiling boss of
Aussie Home Loans, accused their former employer of treating its
contractors like “industrial serfs”. Aussie has been ordered to pay its
rival’s legal costs and is considering an appeal.

The Economist
(subscription only) observes there is another early hope for Vladimir
Putin’s presidency – that market reforms and business-friendly policy
would engender sustainable growth – has been battered by the
dismemberment of Yukos, once Russia’s leading oil company. But there
may be signs that in its relations with business, at least, the Kremlin
will yet revive some of the early optimism.

And The Guardian reports that the World Bank has banned the Financial Times
for six months from receiving advance information about its research
after the paper broke an embargo on the details of the bank’s global
development finance report in an article on Monday previewing the
week’s events.