![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1754647931518-c07d65db-55b5-463e-ae51-976300c5837e.jpeg\"\/)
The 9 per cent VAT rate has been welcomed by restaurants but does the hospitality sector actually need it?<\/p>\nA company that provides international certification for many businesses has claimed in the High Court that a new rival has been built on the \u201cwholesale departure\u201d and \u201crapid migration\u201d of former employees and contractors.<\/p>\n
Amtivo (Ireland) Ltd and its parent, Amtivo Group Ltd, provides certification, including ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) certs in areas including quality management, health and safety, environmental management and information security. <\/p>\n
The competitor, West Assured Solutions Ltd, of Loughrea, Co Galway, which was founded in September 2024 by three former Amtivo employees, provides a similar service. <\/p>\n
On Wednesday, Judge Brian Cregan granted barrister Helen Callanan interim orders restraining one of the most recent departed employees, Martin Heduvan, of Ballynacargy, Mullingar, Co Westmeath, from disclosing or communicating any of Amtivo\u2019s confidential information to any competitor or third party and from using such information to solicit prospective clients to move away from Amtivo.<\/p>\n
The judge said that when the case returns on Friday, he would consider a further order restraining Heduvan from engaging in any activity in competition with Amtivo in the Dublin area without prior consent of Amtivo. The application for the injunctions was made with only the Amtivo side represented.<\/p>\n
Amtivo has brought proceedings against West Assured and its three directors and shareholders. The three are Catherine Howard of Cois na Ce, Kilrush, Co Clare, Edel Murphy of St Brendan\u2019s Road, Portumna, Co Galway, and Gerard Kelly of Coliemore Road, Dalkey, Co Dublin. All three are former employees of Amtivo.<\/p>\n
The 9 per cent VAT rate has been welcomed by restaurants but does the hospitality sector actually need it?<\/p>\n
It is also suing former employees and contractors. They are Kelly-Anne Heeney of Cedar Drive, Woodfarm Acres, Dublin 20, Kelly McGrath of Devenish Road, Kimmage, Dublin, Mark Dwyer of Inch, Ennis, Co Clare and Martina McElvaney, of Drumbrughas North, Lisnaskea, Co Fermanagh.<\/p>\n
The defendants deny the claims against them.<\/p>\n
In an affidavit, Amtivo director Michael Brophy said it was his company\u2019s concern that West Assured\u2019s business had been built to a substantial extent on the \u201crapid migration\u201d of Amtivo employees and contractors.<\/p>\n
Those employees had access to Amtivo\u2019s confidential information, he said. \u201cWest Assured has been constituted, in material part, by the wholesale departure of six senior former employees\u201d and two former contractors, he said.<\/p>\n
Six of those eight individuals had left within a short space of around 15 months, he added, bringing with them their knowledge of Amtivo\u2019s client base and pricing structures, among other things.<\/p>\n
Some 231, or 82 per cent, of client transfers away from Amtivo between April 2025 and June 2026 were to West Assured, said Brophy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is not credible that a new entity would set up and coincidentally take 82pc clients who formed part of an unprecedented exodus from the plaintiff,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
Brophy said that in relation to Heduvan, he finished employment with Amtivo on January 9th last and by February, the company became increasingly concerned about the movement of clients and certificates to West Assured. <\/p>\n
He said Heduvan worked for Amtivo as an assessor and auditor which meant he had access to confidential information including in relation to client audit information, records and relationships. <\/p>\n
Amtivo sought undertakings from Heduvan similar to what was sought in the injunction application but he was not prepared to give undertakings in the form sought, Brophy said. As a result, injunction proceedings were initiated against him.<\/p>\n
Heduvan\u2019s lawyers have denied in correspondence that he was in breach of contracts signed with Amtivo. A non-competition clause was extraordinarily broad and ambiguous and did not identify any proprietary interest, it has been argued. <\/p>\n
The clause also made no reference to a non-solicitation clause and would not be upheld as binding by a court, the lawyers said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A company that provides international certification for many businesses has claimed in the High Court that a new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":362034,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[10863,72,17347,6285,61,60,14420,10864],"class_list":["post-539743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-bestof","tag-business","tag-essential","tag-horizontal","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-parties","tag-topix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539743","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=539743"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/539743\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/362034"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=539743"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=539743"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=539743"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}