Court cites ‘pattern of ongoing concealment’ by former managing director
A British Columbia company whose former managing director secretly signed an agreement with a competitor was unsuccessful in its bid to stop him from doing business with clients until trial.
Justice Coval of the BC Supreme Court dismissed AFX Mixing & Pumping Technologies' application for a second injunction against Shaune McKinon despite finding he breached his fiduciary duties through a pattern of concealment.
McKinon served as AFX's managing director and sole Canadian director from 2014 until his employment ended March 8, 2025. He was removed as director on April 8, 2025.
Unknown to AFX, he had signed an agreement with Mixtec North America, AFX's primary global competitor, on March 20, 2025 while still serving as director.
Email account database
Before departing, McKinon instructed AFX's IT contractor to export his entire email account database and a copy of AFX's entire server.
The Mixtec agreement contemplated Macworx, McKinon's family company, "providing Mixtec with the same services, for the same products, in the same territory as Mr. McKinon's role with AFX."
Macworx was to be paid a monthly retainer of US$6,000 plus commissions. Documents from Mixtec revealed negotiations began in mid-December 2024, and McKinon sent AFX copyrighted technical plans for client Cru Brewing Systems to Mixtec on March 23, 2025.
McKinon initially claimed Mixtec contacted him after leaving AFX and they negotiated their agreement in May 2025. The actual signed agreement proved otherwise. Sales ledgers ordered produced in October were redacted to hide AFX client names, revealing approximately $814,000 in gross revenue from January 2023 to October 2025, including $229,638 in the seven months after his departure, with numerous sales to current and former AFX clients.
Missing employment contract
AFX prepared a written employment contract for McKinon in 2014, but he never signed it and denied agreeing to it. The unsigned contract contained no express confidentiality obligations.
McKinon’s wife, daughter and son also worked for the company but his wife and son had no employment contracts while his daughter had a written agreement with a confidentiality clause stating: "All confidential information pertaining to the business must be kept confidential and may not be disclosed by you or used by you for your own purposes. This duty shall survive the termination of your employment."
AFX obtained a temporary injunction in August 2025 restraining the defendants from possessing or using specific categories of AFX confidential information. The company then sought to prevent McKinon and Macworx from contacting, promoting or selling to AFX clients until trial scheduled for April 2027.
‘Ongoing concealment’ by director
Justice Coval found AFX demonstrated "a strong initial case of Mr. McKinon's breaches of fiduciary duty by acting against its interests in service of his own," including evidence of "a pattern of ongoing concealment." However, the court refused to extend the injunction until the April 2027 trial, noting nine months had already passed since McKinon ceased being a director.
Citing the BC Court of Appeal decision in TCT Logistics v. Nordeen, Justice Coval emphasized that courts "ought to be careful to limit the grant of equitable relief to that reasonably necessary to protect the interests threatened."
“Generally, save in exceptional circumstances, I doubt if it would be easy to persuade a court to initially grant an order extending this sort of equitable relief beyond approximately one year from the date of termination of employment and in many cases, a shorter period may be deemed adequate."
Two affidavits from senior representatives of AFX customers stated that McKinon did not reach out to them after leaving AFX but rather that they contacted him to see if he could provide quotes for products they wished to purchase, and that he did so without criticism of AFX or solicitation of further business.
The court concluded the first injunction restraining possession or use of confidential information remained adequate protection, ruling: "An order requiring them not to do business with AFX's customers pending trial would be excessive judicial interference at this stage."
See AFX Mixing & Pumping Technologies Inc. v McKinon, 2025 BCSC 2573
