3. Duty of fidelity and good faith.

Principal among the obligations imposed on the employee by the common law is the duty of fidelity and good faith. This duty includes, but is not limited to, rendering faithful service to the employer, refraining from wilfully damaging the employer’s interests, and respecting the confidentiality of certain categories of information acquired in the course of employment. This duty is also imposed by the fiduciary nature of the relationship between employer and employee. An employee holds rights and powers that would normally belong to the employer and is thus under an obligation to always act in the best interests of the employer.

The obligations imposed by the duty are not restricted to the employee’s normal working hours; they govern all the activities of the employee, whenever undertaken, which are within the sphere of the employer’s business operations and which could materially affect the employer’s business interests. Some examples of how an employee has breached this duty are:

• Divulging confidential information about the organisation to competitors.

• Sending derogatory statements about the company on external email networks.

• Stealing client information.

The remedy for breach of contract is compensatory damages – an award of a monetary sum which places the employer as close as possible to the position which would have been occupied had the failure to fulfil the duty not occurred.