New Aim Pty Ltd v Leung (No 4)

New Aim Pty Ltd v Leung (No 4) [2025] FCA 747 is a Federal Court retrial about alleged misuse of supplier information after a senior employee left an online retail business and later worked with a competitor. The central issue was whether the identity and contact details of New Aim’s suppliers, including supplier contacts retained in WeChat, were legally confidential information.

The Court dismissed New Aim’s remaining claims. The extract confirms that New Aim failed to establish that the alleged confidential information possessed the necessary quality of confidence. Because that foundation failed, the breach of confidence claim failed, the pleaded contract claim failed, and the s 183 Corporations Act claim also failed.

This page should be read with one important limitation in mind. It is based on the Court’s published extract and orders, which clearly set out the result, the issues and substantial background, but not every detail of the full reasoning.

New Aim was an established Australian online retailer sourcing products predominantly from China and selling them through platforms such as eBay, Amazon, Catch, Kogan and MyDeal, as well as through its own channels. It also operated a dropshipping business. The business had grown substantially over time and, according to the extract, by 2024 it sourced products from about 400 suppliers in China.

Mr Jack Leung had been with New Aim since 2009. He started in a junior role and rose through the organisation to become Chief Commercial Officer in July 2020. That seniority mattered because New Aim said he had broad access to supplier information and procurement knowledge. He resigned on 18 January 2021.

Two competing businesses were also involved. Sun Yee International Pty Ltd was an online retailer and competitor of New Aim. Broers Group Pty Ltd was incorporated on 15 January 2021 and began business in February 2021. Broers also operated an online retail business and sourced products from China. In late April 2021, Mr Leung commenced working with Broers, and by July 2021 he was employed there full-time as a category manager.

New Aim’s complaint was that Mr Leung had access to confidential supplier information during his employment and later used or disclosed that information to assist Broers and, indirectly, Sun Yee. The extract records that it was not in dispute that after leaving New Aim he retained a list of WeChat contacts on his mobile phone and disclosed the identity of a number of suppliers and their WeChat contact details to Broers. The real fight was not over whether disclosure happened. It was over whether the information disclosed was legally confidential.

New Aim described its sourcing process as substantial and multi-step. It said it invested significant time and resources to identify products likely to succeed in the Australian market, shortlist potential suppliers from many possible Chinese manufacturers, obtain and test samples, carry out quality control and compliance work, inspect factories, negotiate terms and then add supplier details to its internal purchasing system. New Aim’s position was that confidentiality lay in the identity and contact details of suppliers that it had already identified as reliable suppliers of high-quality products suitable for the Australian market.

For the retrial, New Aim relied particularly on two bodies of material. One was the WeChat contact list retained by Mr Leung, which included many contacts tagged as supplier. The other was a spreadsheet showing that 17 suppliers used by Broers were also suppliers to New Aim as at January 2021. New Aim accepted that, although it maintained a broader claim about all suppliers as at January 2021, it could only establish an alleged breach in relation to those 17 suppliers.

The respondents denied that the information was confidential. Their position, as recorded in the extract, was that the information could be obtained from publicly available sources, did not have the necessary quality of confidence, was not imparted in circumstances giving rise to an equitable obligation of confidence, and formed part of Mr Leung’s stock of knowledge and know-how that he was free to use after leaving.

This was not the first time the dispute had been before the Court. The extract shows that New Aim originally brought a broader proceeding that included claims for breach of confidence, breach of contract, breach of copyright and misleading or deceptive conduct under the Australian Consumer Law. Some parts of the case had already been resolved before this judgment. In April 2022, consent orders permanently restrained certain respondents from reproducing works that were the subject of New Aim’s copyright claim. The ACL claims were later abandoned, and claims against other respondents had been resolved.

At the first trial in early 2022, New Aim’s claims against Mr Leung for breach of confidence, breach of contract and contravention of s 183 of the Corporations Act were dismissed. Because the breach of confidence claim against Mr Leung failed, the claims against Sun Yee and Broers also failed at that stage.

New Aim appealed. The Full Court upheld the appeal and concluded that the initial trial judge had erred in approaching the confidentiality issue by reference to the WeChat contact list on Mr Leung’s phone. The matter was remitted for retrial. A later interlocutory decision confirmed that there would be a new trial and timetabling orders were made, including for new evidence.

The retrial therefore focused on a narrower but still commercially important set of issues. The extract identifies them clearly. The Court had to decide whether the pleaded "New Aim Confidential Information" had the necessary quality of confidence, whether it had been imparted to Mr Leung in circumstances giving rise to an equitable obligation of confidence, whether equity should intervene to prevent use of the information by Mr Leung and by Broers and Sun Yee as third parties, whether Mr Leung breached his contractual duties of confidence, and whether he breached s 183(1) of the Corporations Act by improperly using information obtained in the course of his employment.

There had also been interlocutory injunctions earlier in the proceeding. Shortly after the case began, New Aim obtained urgent relief restraining the respondents from reproducing, disclosing or using confidential information comprising the identity or contact details of persons who were suppliers to New Aim as at January or March 2021. Later orders set aside the initial injunction and replaced it with a further injunction restraining publication or disclosure of supplier identities and contact details, including contacts listed in the WeChat contact list, pending the appeal and new trial. Those orders are part of the procedural background, but they did not determine the final merits question at the retrial.

The legal issue was not simply whether New Aim’s supplier information was valuable. The Court had to decide whether the particular information relied on by New Aim was confidential in the legal sense. The extract shows that the Court approached the breach of confidence claim by reference to familiar elements, including whether the information was identified with specificity, whether it had the necessary quality of confidence, whether it was received in circumstances importing an obligation of confidence, and whether there was actual or threatened misuse without consent.

That first point, specificity, is important for business owners. A court will not protect a vague category such as "supplier information" unless the claimant can identify what exactly is said to be confidential. Here, New Aim pleaded categories including the identity and contact details of suppliers as at January 2021 and March 2021, and wholesale product information including wholesale prices. But the extract indicates that New Aim’s practical case on the retrial centred on supplier identity and contact details, especially the WeChat contact list and the 17 suppliers shown on the spreadsheet.

The extract also shows the Court considered a range of factors relevant to whether the information had the necessary quality of confidence. Those included the seniority of the employee, the value of the information to the applicant, the skill and effort expended to acquire it, the steps taken to guard it, the extent to which it was jealously guarded, whether employees were told it was confidential, the extent to which it was known outside the business, and whether industry usages and practices supported the claim of confidentiality.

The contract issue was narrower. The catchwords state that there were two employment agreements, but the pleaded cause of action was based on the second employment agreement, and breach of that agreement was not established. The statutory issue under s 183 of the Corporations Act asked whether Mr Leung had improperly used information obtained because he was an officer or employee. The extract records that the Court found no breach of s 183 where no breach of confidence was established.

The Court dismissed the proceeding against the first, fourth and fifth respondents. In practical terms, that meant the claims against Mr Leung, Sun Yee and Broers that remained for determination were unsuccessful.

The decisive finding, as stated in the extract, was that New Aim failed to establish that the alleged confidential information possessed the necessary quality of confidence. Once that conclusion was reached, the breach of confidence claim failed. That also meant the claims against Broers and Sun Yee, which depended on the existence of confidential information and knowledge of that confidentiality, also failed.

The contract claim failed as well. The catchwords state that there were two employment agreements and that the pleaded cause of action was based on the second employment agreement, but breach of that agreement was not established. The extract does not provide the full contractual reasoning, so the safest public reading is that New Aim did not prove the pleaded contractual breach on the case it ran.

The s 183 claim under the Corporations Act also failed. The catchwords record that there was no breach of s 183 where no breach of confidence was established. That does not necessarily mean s 183 can never apply unless an equitable confidence claim succeeds in every case. It means that on the facts and arguments before the Court in this proceeding, New Aim did not establish a contravention.

After giving judgment, the Court directed the parties to file written submissions on costs and listed a further hearing on 22 July 2025 to deal with consequential issues and orders, including costs.

For business owners, the most useful lesson is that the law separates three ideas that are often blurred together in day-to-day operations. First, information may be commercially valuable. Secondly, an employee may have learned it while working for the business. Thirdly, it may or may not be legally confidential. Those categories overlap, but they are not the same.

This case is especially relevant to importers, wholesalers, online retailers and product businesses that source from overseas manufacturers. Many businesses assume that supplier names and contact details are inherently protectable because they took time and money to build. The extract shows that this assumption is risky. Courts will ask what is actually secret about the information. If suppliers can be found through trade fairs, B2B platforms, industry networks, referrals or ordinary market research, a broad claim to supplier identity alone may be difficult to sustain.

That does not mean supplier-related information can never be protected. It means the strongest claim may lie in more specific and less publicly discoverable material. Depending on the business, that may include negotiated wholesale pricing, product specifications, compliance pathways, quality control reports, fault-rate history, factory inspection outcomes, internal rankings of suppliers, margin analysis, launch strategy, or records showing which supplier can reliably produce a product to the required standard for the Australian market. The extract confirms that New Aim had a detailed sourcing process and internal systems, but the Court still concluded that the information relied on in the case did not have the necessary quality of confidence.

The case also highlights the importance of conduct, not just paperwork. Courts look at what the business actually did to guard information. If supplier contacts are spread across personal phones, messaging apps, spreadsheets and informal chats, it becomes harder to show that the business treated the information as controlled and confidential. A confidentiality clause in an employment agreement helps, but it is usually not enough on its own if the surrounding systems are loose or the information is not clearly defined.

Another practical point is pleading and proof. New Aim appears to have framed its case around supplier identity and contact details, and accepted that it could only establish an alleged breach in relation to 17 suppliers. Businesses considering litigation should be careful not to overstate the category of information they seek to protect. A narrower, better-documented claim is often stronger than a broad label that captures material that is partly public, partly know-how and partly confidential.

The extract gives a useful checklist of the kinds of evidence courts examine in confidentiality disputes. New Aim relied on its sourcing process, internal procurement systems, witness evidence from senior staff, expert evidence, the WeChat contact list and the spreadsheet showing overlap between New Aim suppliers and Broers suppliers. The Court’s headings in the extract show that it considered not only the value of the information and the effort used to obtain it, but also the steps taken to guard it, whether it was jealously guarded, whether employees were told it was confidential, how widely it was known outside the business and what industry practice looked like.

That means businesses should think beyond contract clauses. If you want to protect supplier information, your documents and conduct should line up. Useful steps may include clearly classifying procurement records, limiting who can export supplier data, controlling use of personal messaging apps for supplier communications, requiring return or deletion of business contacts on exit where lawful and practical, and documenting which information is considered confidential and why.

It is also important to distinguish between information that belongs to the business and information that may be part of an employee’s own experience. The respondents in this case argued that the information formed part of Mr Leung’s stock of knowledge and know-how. That argument often arises where a senior employee has spent years building relationships in a market. Businesses should therefore identify what is truly proprietary and record it in systems that are recognisably the company’s, rather than leaving key relationships embedded only in an individual’s personal device or memory.

Can I stop a former employee contacting my suppliers? Sometimes, but not automatically. You will usually need to show that the information used was truly confidential or that another enforceable restraint or contractual obligation applies.

Does it matter that the employee was very senior? Yes, seniority can matter because it may explain access to more sensitive information. But seniority alone does not make all information confidential.

What if the supplier can be found online or at trade fairs? That can weaken a claim that the supplier’s identity or contact details are confidential. The more readily discoverable the information is, the harder it may be to protect that category on its own.

Should we ban WeChat or similar apps? Not necessarily, but you should have clear rules about business use, record keeping, ownership of contacts and what happens on exit. Uncontrolled use can create evidentiary and confidentiality problems.

Is this case the final word on supplier confidentiality? No. Confidentiality disputes are highly fact-specific. This case is a strong reminder of the proof required, not a rule that supplier information can never be protected.

The judgment was delivered on 8 July 2025. The orders in the extract dismissed the proceeding against the first, fourth and fifth respondents and set a timetable for costs submissions, with a further hearing listed for 22 July 2025 to deal with consequential issues including costs.

The public explanation on this page is based on the Court extract and is suitable as a practical case note. It should not be treated as a substitute for reviewing the full reasons if you need to rely on the case in advice, drafting or litigation.

This case note is drawn from the Federal Court database entry for New Aim Pty Ltd v Leung (No 4) [2025] FCA 747, including the catchwords, orders, introductory reasons and background passages available there. Those materials clearly support the parties, the retrial context, the pleaded issues, the Court’s conclusion that the alleged confidential information lacked the necessary quality of confidence, and the dismissal of the remaining claims.

Because the available material used for this page is an extract rather than a full review of every paragraph of the judgment, some detailed reasoning has been described cautiously. If later developments such as costs reasons or appeal steps are important, they should be checked separately.