Can You Get a Court to Stop Someone from Sharing Customer/Client Lists?

Can you get a court to stop someone from sharing customer/client lists in Arkansas? As explained in this blog post, it depends. But often the question is debatable and hiring an attorney experienced in unfair competition litigation can increase the chances that a court will come to the aid of a party seeking to prevent the disclosure of a customer/client list.

As we discussed in a prior article of this blog series, determining whether a customer/client list is a protectable trade secret often involves looking closely at the facts and circumstances of each situation. But generally, Arkansas law does allow a court to step in and prevent the sharing of customer/client lists.

The Arkansas Uniform Trade Secrets Act provides that a court may permissibly award injunctive relief (a court ordering someone what to do/not do) in the case of actual or threatened misappropriation of trade secrets. Ark. Code Ann. § 4-75-604.

There are several notable Arkansas cases in which courts have allowed a court to step in and stop the improper use of trade secrets. Those cases include the following:

• The court awarded a temporary restraining order (an order telling someone to stop abusing trade secrets) protecting a former employer’s customer and pricing lists. This was a case where the former employer had gone through the effort of making sure that the lists at issue were password protected. The Court expressed concern for protecting the business’s reputation from the former employee’s efforts to contact customers and say damaging things about the company.
• The court awarded a preliminary injunction barring a former employee from using a customer list. The list included customer contact names, phone numbers, addresses, and e-mail addresses.
• The court awarded a preliminary injunction finding that a company had a protectable interest in stopping the abuse of confidential information contained within a customer list.