Social Media Contacts Created in the Course of Employment
Published on: 24/03/2015
Article Authors The main content of this article was provided by the following authors.
Barry Walsh Partner, EPIC (Employment), Fieldfisher LLP
Barry Walsh Partner, EPIC (Employment), Fieldfisher LLP
Barry walsh

Barry is Head of Fieldfisher LLP (Ireland)s’ Employment Department. He has considerable employment law experience, having previously served as a partner with a large Dublin law firm for a number of years. He has advised a wide range of Irish and multinational corporate and institutional clients, partnerships and senior executives on all aspects of Irish employment law from recruitment to retirement including contentious, advisory and transactional work.

Barry is experienced in acting for clients with respect to contractual and termination issues with senior executives. In addition to advising on employment law, he has also advised on industrial relations issues arising from mergers and acquisitions, outsourcing and redundancy situations. He has significant litigation experience and has directly represented clients before the European Court of Justice, the Irish civil courts and all specialist Irish employment tribunals.

Barry is regularly recommended in established legal publications and directories, including Legal 500 and Chambers Europe.

He has lectured and presented widely on employment law issues with such bodies as the Law Society of Ireland, International Bar Association, Employment Law Alliance, Legal Island and CIPD and has published various articles on HR law issues in the general media and specialist publications. He is a member of the Law Society’s Employment & Equality Law Committee.

Barry Walsh, Partner at McDowell Purcell, explores the issue of who owns social media contacts created in the course of employment.

At a recent breakfast meeting, Barry identified social media contact ownership as an issue of increasing concern for many employers due to the risks regarding breach of confidentiality and restrictive covenants through the use of social media.

Ownership of social media contacts is not regulated by law and can be factually complicated, especially where many employees come to their employer with long established existing business-focused social media accounts such as LinkedIn and then add their new employer’s logo to assist creating new contacts which are then further built up over time.


Departing Employees Can Access Clients and Contracts


Breaches

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Disclaimer The information in this article is provided as part of Legal Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article. This article is correct at 24/03/2015
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