An injunction (also known as a Stop Order) is a court order, which either prohibits a particular act, or compels someone to carry out a specific act. An injunction might be needed when the media intends to publish a story which would invade a person’s privacy or disclose confidential details of a company’s business practices where there is no public interest.
In such circumstances, the only way to ensure those rights are respected is to order the media not to publish the story, because once confidentiality of information is lost, it is gone forever.
Injunctions can be sought at extremely short notice, 24 hours a day, since courts recognise that urgent action is often needed and a judge is on duty to deal with emergency applications. An injunction is a very serious legal remedy and the person or company seeking an injunction must undertake to compensate any loss suffered by the party restrained if it transpires the injunction should not have been granted.
Ten years ago, it was rare for a company to seek to protect information by way of an injunction. Today, it is more common because the media are more keen to publish business-related stories to satisfy a larger and increasingly global audience for business information.
An injunction can be sought against a known person, such as a disgruntled current or former employee, or a newspaper. An injunction can also be sought when the name of the would-be publisher is unknown, but it is clear that confidential material is being offered for publication. These ‘John Doe’ orders can be served on third parties, including the media, who will then be prohibited from assisting the ‘John Doe’ in the wrongdoing, that is, publishing confidential information the John Doe is trying to leak.