Blomfield prepares to challenge Infinity in court

By ADAM GIFFORD

Software consultant Matt Blomfield says he is prepared to battle it out in court with Infinity Group for the return of code for his Osprey health and safety software.

"It is not going to be easy to take on 'the big boys' but I have never been one to back down from a good fight," Blomfield said.

Blomfield and Whangarei occupational health and safety specialists Company Health Services last year commissioned Infinity to code Osprey.

The dispute hinges on the involvement of present and past Infinity executives and directors in Intaz, which Blomfield claims breaches a two-way restraint of trade clause contained in his contract with Infinity.

Intaz, which is backed by a number of wealthy investors brought together by Wellington merchant bank Cameron & Co, is trying to raise $10 million to complete and market a new version of its health and safety package, SafeTnet4.

The contract for Osprey was signed on behalf of Infinity in March last year by director Murray McCaw. McCaw resigned as a director in December, and has since done consulting work for Intaz on strategy and marketing for SafeTnet4.

He told the Herald last week that he did not see any conflict between this work and his reading the business plan for Osprey.

Blomfield said yesterday that the business plan "included go-to-market strategies, marketing plans, descriptions of the product and service, distribution channels and existing opportunities with my current customers and all those other things you would expect in a well-put-together business plan".

"It appears that he [Mr McCaw] has since provided consulting services to Intaz on these same issues."

Chief executive of Intaz is Nigel Foster, a partner with McCaw in IT services company Comtex, which is now part of Infinity.

Massey University pro-chancellor Nigel Gould is a director and shareholder of both Infinity and Intaz.

Intaz chairman Mark Taylor said Blomfield and Company Health Services had no dispute with Intaz in relation to intellectual property or any other matter.

Blomfield explicitly acknowledged that in communications with Intaz directors last week.

Taylor also said no information, confidential or otherwise, about Osprey, Blomfield's activities or Company Health Services had ever been passed to Intaz by any director, shareholder, employee or any other person affiliated to Infinity.

"It appears from the Herald article [March 12, C7], and from conversations he has had with members of our board, that Blomfield's claim is against Infinity. We find it hard to understand what that claim might be.

"Nonetheless, Intaz is pleased that there is no longer any suggestion of a dispute over its intellectual property rights," said Taylor.

Blomfield said it was not so cut and dried.

"What I told Rob Cameron [of Cameron & Co] was I don't know if there are issues with intellectual property because I haven't seen their software and I don't know what McCaw said to them. That is still to come out."

Blomfield said events of the past week had made it clear there had been multiple breaches of the restraint of trade clause in the contract entered into between Infinity, Company Health Services and himself.

"Every moment directors, former directors and employees of Infinity spend in association with Intaz represents a continuing breach of my agreement," he said.

Both McCaw and Foster admitted being aware of Osprey, but said it was not proceeding or "has gone away".

This was not the message Infinity was giving to the market as recently as February 1.

Donald Hastie from Christchurch payroll and human resources software company PayGlobal said on that day he met Infinity chief financial officer Stuart Stitt, Blomfield and Dr Jim McLeod from Company Health Services to discuss whether Osprey could be integrated with the PayGlobal application as a way of getting it to market.

"I had a subsequent meeting in Wellington with one of the developers, and Stuart came in at the end to demonstrate the product and continue the discussions," Hastie said.

"I'm concerned that if I had picked it up then and went out to talk to my customers about it, I could have ended up being embarrassed by Infinity's failure to support it."

Blomfield said that even before Intaz made public its links with key Infinity people he was talking to Infinity about ending their contract because "there seemed to be a lack of enthusiasm at a senior management level for what I thought was a good product".

He said 10 days ago Infinity was demanding money from him to end the contract. By last Friday it had indicated it was willing to hand over the code and functional specifications, but was not willing to pay damages for breach of contract, lost opportunities and the need to develop a new marketing plan, Blomfield said.

Infinity chief executive Stuart Robb said the company had nothing further to add to what had been published.