Amalgamated Pest Control has crashed in a lawsuit to stop its “border regions” franchisees from starting up their own business in competition.
The allegiance of Simon and Sarah Gillece’s customers was to them personally rather than to the franchise and it was a better financial proposition for them to go it alone rather than pay 23% of revenue to Amalgamated.
When they quit the franchise, they argued the three-year pest control restraint that applied to them over an area from Stanthorpe as far west as St George was far too wide to constitute a legitimate protection of Amalgamated’s business interests.
The clincher in their victory over Amalgamated was the absolute necessity they be in the field to combat an urgent battle against a mouse plague in the Goondiwindi region.
