Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Employer sought interlocutory injunction effectively restraining a former senior account manager from accepting or servicing certain insurance clients at a competitor, despite no non-compete clause in her contract.
• Evidence showed the employee forwarded large volumes of confidential client information to her personal email and removed physical documents, constituting admitted breaches of contractual confidentiality obligations.
• Prior interlocutory orders already restrained any use, access, or disclosure of the confidential information, and there was no evidence of misuse after those orders were made.
• Application of the RJR-MacDonald test turned on irreparable harm and balance of convenience, with the court finding that any lost business could be quantified in damages and that the existing orders sufficiently protected the employer.
• Statutory policy in s. 67.2 of Ontario’s Employment Standards Act, 2000 against non-compete agreements weighed against granting an injunction that would operate as a de facto non-compete and would also restrict clients’ ability to move their business.
• The plaintiff’s motion for expanded injunctive relief was dismissed, leaving the defendant free to work for the competitor subject to existing confidentiality-based orders, and costs were left to agreement or further submissions, with no monetary figure fixed in this decision.

Background and employment relationship

The case arises from a dispute between Cowan Insurance Group Ltd., an insurance brokerage, and its former employee Jamie Bennett, who worked as a Senior Account Manager, Commercial Insurance. Bennett was employed at Cowan from August 9, 2021, until her resignation on September 2, 2025. She was part of one commercial insurance team that collectively managed 124 clients, generating nearly $6 million in annual revenue from about $43 million in premiums. Within that structure, Cowan described Bennett as the lead representative for 13 key clients who generated over half of her team’s annual revenue. Her role placed her in a position of trust and access to major commercial accounts and their confidential information.

Reasons for departure and move to competitor

Bennett’s dissatisfaction with her role stemmed from several employment-related concerns. Her salary rose from $85,000 to $93,000 over roughly four years, which the court characterized as less than a 2.5% annual increase. She also faced an increased workload and was denied a request to work from Cowan’s Woodstock office (closer to her home in London, Ontario) instead of the Cambridge office. These factors prompted her to explore alternative employment, and by mid-August 2025 she had secured a position as Commercial Operations Team Leader at BFL Canada. While this new role was not described as a direct sales position, it involved teaching and mentoring staff engaged in sales, and she acknowledged there would be some interaction with clients. BFL Canada is identified as one of Cowan’s largest competitors.

Misuse of confidential information and discovery

The dispute escalated when Cowan discovered that Bennett had taken confidential information as she was leaving. Cowan alleged she was caught removing physical documents containing confidential information from one of Cowan’s largest clients; these documents were taken from her before she could leave with them. This discovery led Cowan to review Bennett’s work email. That review uncovered 17 emails sent between August 19 and 22, 2025, to her personal Gmail address, attaching approximately 130 documents. Cowan characterized this as “significant amounts of confidential information,” including due diligence reviews, coverage summaries, and client proposals with sensitive details of clients’ insurance policies, risk assessments, and business operations, representing about 19% of Cowan’s commercial insurance business. In cross-examination on this motion, Bennett admitted forwarding confidential Cowan information to herself, in breach of her contractual obligations. She also admitted deleting the emails she had sent from her work account to her personal account to avoid detection, which the plaintiff relied on to question her credibility.

Initial court proceedings and existing injunctions

Cowan commenced an action and sought urgent interlocutory relief. Three early appearances took place before Justice Parghi on September 17, September 22, and October 3, 2025. On September 17, the defendant had only just been served and retained counsel. Justice Parghi granted interlocutory relief focused on preventing use, access, and further dissemination of the confidential information but declined to grant a broad “non-acceptance of business” clause (referred to as paragraph 9 of the proposed order), which would effectively operate as a non-compete type restriction. On September 22, Justice Parghi reconsidered Cowan’s request for a non-compete-like provision and again refused it, emphasizing that there was no non-compete clause in Bennett’s employment agreement (unlike in other cases such as Aon Reed) and that the harm Cowan feared was already appropriately addressed by prohibitions on use and access to the information. Justice Parghi noted that, while it could be inferred Bennett originally took the information intending to use it, it was not appropriate to infer that she would do so in the face of a clear court order forbidding such use. On October 3, 2025, Justice Parghi issued an endorsement timetabling the present motion before Justice Dow, effectively setting the stage for Cowan’s renewed attempt to obtain broader injunctive relief.

Nature of the motion before Justice Dow

Before Justice Dow, Cowan sought to extend and expand the existing injunctive relief. In substance, Cowan wanted a non-acceptance-of-business restriction that would block Bennett, in her role at BFL, from accepting or servicing any Cowan clients (or clients of Cowan in the 18 months prior to her departure) with whom she had dealt while at Cowan. To support this request, Cowan relied on several evidentiary points: Bennett’s admitted intention—when she emailed the documents—to use confidential information she had forwarded to herself; the fact that BFL is a major competitor; her acknowledgement that she will interact with clients at BFL and be eligible for a discretionary bonus and compensation for referring clients; her deletion of the sent emails to conceal her conduct; the court’s concern about her credibility in relation to timing of contact with BFL versus when the emails were sent; and a communication where she told another Cowan employee, interested in BFL, to reach out on her own rather than expressly saying she could not discuss employment at BFL, which Cowan argued suggested a willingness to facilitate moves to the competitor. These factors formed the factual backdrop to Cowan’s argument that stricter injunctive relief was necessary to protect its business and client base.

Legal framework: RJR-MacDonald test for interlocutory injunctions

The parties agreed that the motion should be decided under the three-part test from RJR-MacDonald v. Canada (Attorney General). That test requires the moving party to show: first, a serious issue to be tried; second, a risk of irreparable harm if the injunction is refused, meaning harm not compensable by money damages; and third, that the balance of convenience favours granting the relief, weighing which party would suffer greater harm from granting or refusing the order. On the first branch, there was little controversy. The defendant did not strongly contest that Cowan had raised a serious issue to be tried, given the admitted breaches of confidentiality obligations and the volume and importance of the information taken. The judge described her conduct as “unacceptable” and found that she had clearly breached her obligations to her former employer. If the analysis stopped there, he suggested, the plaintiff’s position would be relatively strong.

Irreparable harm and adequacy of existing protections

The turning point in the decision was the second branch of the test: whether Cowan would suffer irreparable harm if additional injunctive relief were not granted. Cowan relied on case law suggesting that irreparable harm can be presumed in misuse-of-confidential-information scenarios, such as Arc Compute v. Anton Allen and others, where misuse of such information threatens a business in ways difficult to quantify. Justice Dow acknowledged that the information Bennett took was confidential and commercially significant. However, he emphasized that the circumstances here were different because the misconduct was discovered early and had already been addressed by strong, existing court orders restricting any use or disclosure of the information. There was no evidence that Bennett had misused any of the confidential information after the initial interlocutory orders were imposed in mid-September 2025. Justice Dow accepted and echoed Justice Parghi’s earlier view that it was not appropriate, on this record, to infer that Bennett intended to flout a clear court order prohibiting her from using the information. He concluded that the protections already in place through those previous orders sufficed to manage the risk, and the plaintiff had not demonstrated ongoing or imminent misuse that would justify imposing a broader non-acceptance-of-business restraint.

Role of employment standards legislation and client autonomy

Justice Dow also grounded his analysis in broader legal and policy considerations. He referred to s. 67.2 of the Employment Standards Act, 2000, which generally prohibits non-compete agreements in Ontario employment relationships, subject to narrow statutory exceptions. Against that legislative backdrop, he found it inappropriate to grant injunctive relief that would effectively operate as a non-compete clause when the employment contract itself contained no such provision. The requested order would substantially limit Bennett’s ability to work for a competitor in relation to certain clients for a defined period, cutting against the statutory policy that disfavors such restraints. In addition, the judge emphasized that clients of Cowan are not parties to the litigation and should not be prevented, as a matter of court order, from shopping their business around to obtain the best available insurance coverage and terms. Preventing Bennett from having any relationship with those clients, even in a non-sales, operations-oriented role at a competitor, would indirectly restrict the clients’ freedom to move their business, which the court considered inappropriate where adequate confidentiality protections were already in place.

Quantifiability of harm and balance of convenience

The judge further reasoned that any financial harm Cowan might suffer if a client chose to move its business to BFL could be quantified in damages, especially if there were later proof that the move occurred through contractual violations or misuse of confidential information. Loss of revenue and profit in that circumstance appeared capable of being measured with sufficient certainty to allow a damages remedy. This undercut Cowan’s contention that the harm was irreparable. On the third branch of the test—the balance of convenience—Justice Dow noted that the existing contractual and court-ordered restrictions already bind Bennett, and there was no evidence of misconduct after those orders. Adding another layer of restraint, functioning as a non-compete, would significantly burden the defendant’s ability to work, contrary to statutory policy and in the absence of proven post-order misuse. In these circumstances, the judge found the balance of convenience favoured the defendant, given that the plaintiff remained protected by prior orders and could seek damages if a later breach were established.

Outcome of the injunction motion

Having found that Cowan failed to establish irreparable harm and that the balance of convenience did not favour expanding the injunction, Justice Dow dismissed the plaintiff’s motion for additional injunctive relief. The earlier interlocutory orders made by Justice Parghi—prohibiting use, access, or dissemination of the confidential information—continue to operate. However, the court did not impose the requested non-acceptance-of-business or non-compete-style restriction preventing Bennett from dealing with Cowan clients at BFL. In practical terms, Bennett remains subject to strict confidentiality-related obligations and court orders, but she is not barred by this decision from working at BFL Canada or from having contact with clients who may choose to move their business, provided she complies with those confidentiality obligations and does not misuse Cowan’s information.

Costs discussion and absence of a fixed monetary award

On costs, the court reviewed the parties’ respective costs outlines. Cowan sought substantial partial-indemnity fees and disbursements across three phases: the interim injunction motion, enforcement of the interim order (which included sizeable forensic review expenses), and the interlocutory injunction motion addressed in this decision. The judge observed that Cowan appeared successful in the first two phases but unsuccessful in the third. The defendant’s costs outline sought a significant global amount in partial-indemnity fees and disbursements for her side of the litigation. Both parties had provided draft orders that contemplated the continuation of Justice Parghi’s relief and addressed costs in principle, but no final figure had been agreed or fixed. Rather than imposing an immediate quantified costs order, Justice Dow urged the parties to agree on costs and submit a revised draft order setting out the agreed amounts. Failing agreement, he directed a short written-submissions process with page limits and timelines for each party. Critically, he did not fix or award any specific dollar amount for costs or damages in this decision. The case thus leaves the quantum of costs to future agreement or further determination.

Overall ruling, successful party, and monetary result

Overall, this decision is an interlocutory ruling in an employment-based commercial dispute over confidential information in the insurance brokerage sector. The court accepts that Bennett engaged in serious misconduct by emailing and attempting to remove confidential client materials, but concludes that existing court orders already manage the risk of misuse. Guided by the RJR-MacDonald framework, the Employment Standards Act’s prohibition on non-competes, and respect for client autonomy to move their business, Justice Dow refuses to grant the broader non-acceptance-of-business injunction sought by Cowan. As a result, the plaintiff’s motion is dismissed, and the successful party on this motion is the defendant, Jamie Bennett. The decision does not specify any total monetary award, costs, or damages ordered in her favour or against the plaintiff; instead, it defers the quantification of costs to either agreement between the parties or a subsequent costs determination. Accordingly, the total amount ordered in favour of the successful party cannot be determined from this decision.