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Knight Frank Uganda Limited v Broll Uganda Limited & Another (Civil Suit 206 of 2021)

High Court · [2024] UGCOMMC 339 · 2024 Judgment for Plaintiff (Partial) AI-generated summary ↓ Download Pin to watchlist Add to matter
Jurisdiction
Uganda
Case Type
First instance civil suit for infringement of copyright and trade secrets
Decision
Judgment for the Plaintiff. Defendants found liable for infringement of moral rights to copyright. Damages of UGX 70,000,000 awarded. Permanent injunction granted. Plaintiff's claims for economic rights infringement and trade secret misappropriation dismissed.

Observed later treatment

No later-treatment classification is recorded for this judgment.

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Holding

Held that the Plaintiff had only moral rights (not economic rights) to the copyright in its Retail Market Study Report because the report was a commissioned work under the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act 2006. The Defendants infringed the Plaintiff's moral rights by copying and using a map extract from the report without attribution. The Plaintiff failed to establish that the report contents were protected trade secrets because it did not take all reasonable steps to maintain secrecy. Judgment for the Plaintiff on copyright infringement of moral rights only.

Outcome

Judgment for the Plaintiff. Defendants found liable for infringement of moral rights to copyright. Damages of UGX 70,000,000 awarded. Permanent injunction granted. Plaintiff's claims for economic rights infringement and trade secret misappropriation dismissed.

Facts

Knight Frank Uganda Limited, a property management and valuation company, prepared a Retail Market Study Report for various clients between 2015 and 2018, containing confidential data on existing and upcoming commercial retail developments in Kampala. The report included a map extract showing proposed developments. In December 2019, Knight Frank discovered that Broll Valuation & Advisory Services (Pty) Ltd had copied and used the map extract in valuation reports for Acacia Mall and Metroplex Shopping Mall without attribution. The Plaintiff suspected Moses Dennis Lutalo, a former Knight Frank employee who had access to the report and subsequently became Managing Director of Broll Uganda Limited, of providing the report to the Defendants. Broll admitted the copying, withdrew the reports, and apologised. Knight Frank sued for copyright infringement and misappropriation of trade secrets, seeking damages and injunctive relief.

Issues

  1. Whether the testimony of PW1 is admissible.
  2. Whether the plaintiff has copyright in the Retail Market Study Report.
  3. If the plaintiff has copyright in the Retail Market Study Report, whether the defendants jointly and/or severally infringed that copyright.
  4. Whether the contents of the Retail Market Study Report are entitled to protection as trade secrets.
  5. Whether the defendants jointly and/or severally infringed the plaintiff's trade secrets in the Retail Market Study Report.
  6. What remedies are available to the parties.

Orders

  • A declaration is issued that the Defendants' inclusion of the Map Extract from the Retail Property Investments Prospects section of the Retail Market Study Report in their 2018 and 2019 Acacia Mall valuation reports and in their 2019 Metroplex Shopping Mall valuation report without honouring the Plaintiff's authorship of that Report was an infringement of the Plaintiff's moral rights to the copyright in the Report.
  • A permanent injunction is granted restraining the Defendants and their employees or agents from reproducing any part of the Retail Market Study Report in their works without honouring the Plaintiff's authorship of the same.
  • The Defendants shall jointly and severally pay to the Plaintiff the sum of UGX 70,000,000 being the general damages for their infringement of the Plaintiff's moral rights in the Retail Market Study Report.
  • The Defendants shall jointly and severally pay to the Plaintiff interest on the general damages at the rate of 14% per annum from the date of this judgment until payment in full.
  • The Plaintiff is awarded one third of the costs of this suit.

Rules and key headnotes

Copyright Law — Commissioned Works — Vesting of Economic Rights
Under Section 8(1)(b) of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act 2006, where a person creates a work on commission by another person or body, the copyright in respect of that work vests in the person or body that commissioned the work, not in the creator, in the absence of a contract to the contrary. The creator retains only the moral rights to the copyright.
Copyright Law — Moral Rights — Attribution and Integrity
Moral rights under Section 10 of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act 2006 entitle the author of any work protected by copyright to claim authorship of that work and to have their name acknowledged during the exercise of economic rights in the work. Copying and using a copyrighted work without attribution infringes the creator's moral rights even where the creator does not hold the economic rights.
Copyright Law — Originality Requirement
A work is original and eligible for copyright protection if it is the product of the independent efforts of the author and involves the exercise of skill and judgment. Maps are capable of attracting copyright protection under Section 5(1) of the Copyright and Neighbouring Rights Act 2006 where they meet the originality requirement.
Trade Secrets — Requirements for Protection
For information to qualify as a trade secret protected under Sections 2 and 4 of the Trade Secrets Protection Act 2009, three conditions must be satisfied: the information must be secret, it must have commercial value because it is secret, and the holder must have taken reasonable steps to keep it secret. All three conditions must be met for protection to apply.
Trade Secrets — Reasonable Steps to Maintain Secrecy
Password protection alone is not adequate to keep information secret where the holder has not conveyed to persons with access that the information is confidential. Reasonable steps to maintain secrecy may include confidentiality provisions in employment contracts, non-disclosure agreements, and contractual obligations on recipients of the information. Sharing confidential information with multiple clients without binding them to confidentiality obligations undermines trade secret protection.
Statutory Interpretation — The Golden Rule
Under the golden rule of statutory interpretation, a statute ought to be construed as a whole, giving words their ordinary signification unless doing so produces an inconsistency, absurdity or inconvenience so great as to convince the court that the legislative intention could not have been to use the words in their ordinary sense. In such cases, the court will modify the ordinary sense of the words to avoid the absurdity.
Admissibility of Evidence — Relevance and Improper Procurement
All relevant evidence is admissible unless subject to some exclusionary rule. As a general rule, the manner of procuring evidence does not affect its admissibility. Discovery of relevant evidence in an improper or even unlawful manner is not a bar to its admissibility, and relevant evidence is admissible notwithstanding its improper or unlawful origins.

Legislation cited (15)

Cases cited (16)

  • Miller v Minister of Pensions [1947] 2 All ER 372
  • Idrifua Patrick v Uganda (High Court Criminal Application No. 36 of 2016)
  • Kuruma s/o Kairu v R (1955) AC 197
  • Atal v Kiruuta t/a 97 Africa Arts & Crafts (High Court Civil Suit No. 967 of 2004)
  • Angella Katatumba v The Anti-Corruption Coalition of Uganda (High Court Civil Suit No. 307 of 2011)
  • AON (U) Ltd v Uganda Revenue Authority (High Court Miscellaneous Case No. 66 of 2009)
  • Sylvia Nabiteeko Katende v Bank of Uganda (High Court Civil Suit No. 443 of 2010)
  • Zeenode Ltd v The Attorney General & 2 Others (High Court Miscellaneous Application No. 347 of 2021)
  • Andrew Collett v Northland Art Co. Ltd & 2 Ors (2018 FC 269)
  • Translink Ltd v Chemi & Cotex Industries Ltd, Tanzania (CCIL), Civil Suit No. 0100 of 2019
  • Opia Moses v Chukia Lumago Roselyn & 5 Others (High Court Civil Suit No. 0022 of 2013)
  • Mohanlal Kakubhai Radia v Warid Telecom Uganda Ltd (High Court Civil Suit No. 0224 of 2011)
  • Kwizera Eddie v Attorney General (Supreme Court Constitutional Appeal No. 01 of 2008)
  • Makula International Ltd v His Eminence Cardinal Nsubuga & Another (Court of Appeal Civil Appeal No. 4 of 1981)
  • Phillips v Copping [1935] 1 K.B. 15
  • Wayman Fire Protection Inc. v Premium Power Services LLC (CA No. 7866-VCP)

Full judgment

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Knight Frank Uganda Limited v Broll Uganda Limited & Another (Civil Suit 206 of 2021) [2024] UGCommC 339 (21 November 2024)
Source: this page presents Wakilii’s issue analysis and metadata for a publicly reported Ugandan judgment. Any AI-generated summary is marked as such. Judgment text is sourced from the Uganda Legal Information Institute (ulii.org). Wakilii is not affiliated with ULII.