Battle over dry fruit formula heats up
The protection of the secret formula of a substance to aid the drying of fruit – especially raisins and sultanas – came under legal scrutiny with the company that developed the formula turning to court to stop a former director from competing in this field by sharing it.
The Mercury reports Pika Chemical, trading as Afritech, turned to the Western Cape High Court to obtain an interim interdict against its former director and chemist who was instrumental in developing the formula, James Nolte, and various other entities.
It wanted the respondents restrained from using its formula for a fruit drying oil (FDO) known as ‘Pylene FDO’.
Afritech has produced and supplied chemical compounds of various applications since 1997. It said it developed and manufactured Pylene FDO, used to aid the drying of fruit. The formulation of Pylene FDO is proprietary to it and is confidential, the court was told.
It claimed the formulation is known only to a handful of people and is of significant economic value to whomever possesses it.
Nolte developed Pylene FDO while a director of Afritech.
Afritech director Dorian Overberg was later told Nolte was an agent or consultant for an alternative supplier – Southern Oil (Pty) Ltd (SOILL).
Overberg concluded that SOILL was using it's FDO formulation to produce its competing product.
According to The Mercury report, Acting Judge B Manca said SOILL had been in the process of developing an FDO since 2015, but was unable to do so effectively until it engaged the services of Nolte.
‘Tellingly, Mr Nolte admitted that he is one of only a handful of people who know the formulation of Pylene FDO. This admission is sufficient to establish, prima facie, that the applicant's formulation of Pylene FDO is confidential to the applicant.’
The judge was satisfied that the applicant has proved that it owns the formulation of Pylene FDO and that it is confidential to it and seemingly this confidentiality is being infringed.
Finding that a small industry like the applicant will not be able to sustain its losses, the court issued an interim interdict preventing the respondents from using Afritech's secrets in its drying product.
This order is pending a main application to be heard later to finally determine the issues.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
