Secret profit

In English law, a secret profit is a profit made by an employee who uses the employer's premises and business facilities to carry on unauthorised trade on his own behalf. The usual example is a bar manager who buys beer from a brewery in his own right and sells it in the bar in preference to the employer's stock. The employee is treated as a constructive trustee of the profit for the employer, who has a proprietary interest in it, so the profit is not merely a civil debt; the article cites FHR European Ventures LLP v Cedar Capital Partners LLC [2014] UKSC 45 for this. Before 15 January 2007 deceiving customers could be prosecuted as obtaining property by deception, an offence since replaced by fraud by false representation, and fraud by abuse of position may now apply.