Toronto Ontario - When the corporate espionage allegations levelled by Canadian National Railway against its archrival Canadian Pacific Railway surfaced last month, CP responded by sending its customers a bulletin condemning the behaviour.
 
The memo, dated 22 Sep 2015 and signed by CP president and chief operating officer Keith Creel, himself a former CN executive, assured customers that CP had taken "immediate action" when it learned of the allegations and launched an internal probe.
 
"This type of behaviour is not condoned, nor will it be tolerated," reads the memo, obtained by The Globe and Mail.
 
"We take these allegations very seriously as they do not reflect the culture of CP or the values of its people."
 
But the language in the memo appears to contrast sharply with messages that CN alleges in court documents were sent by senior CP staff.
 
CN filed internal CP communications that appear to show that the use of confidential CN information by two former employees who had jumped ship to CP was well-known and encouraged among senior officials at CP, including Mr. Creel himself.
 
Transcripts of text messages filed in court allege that Mr. Creel encouraged one of the CP employees at the centre of the allegations to use information he obtained while employed at rival CN.
 
In one text message, Mr. Creel tells the employee there are "no restrictions" on using client lists obtained by a former CN employee.
 
"It's a competitive world," Mr. Creel replied.
 
"Free market. Just don't give out any old CN documents or anything with CN on them. Just relative facts about the customer."
 
None of CN's allegations have been proved in court.
 
A lawyer for CP acknowledged in court this week that it was wrong for its employees to have made off with client information while they worked at rival CN and use it while working for CP.
 
However, CP argued the information is no longer being used to win customers.
 
CP lawyer Robert Harrison was arguing against CN's request for an Ontario Superior Court judge to issue an injunction blocking CP from using confidential information to woo clients and appointing an independent monitor to ensure CP does so.
 
Mr. Harrison agreed that not all CP sales staff had received the message to stop using the CN information.
 
But he told court the impact was small.
 
And he argued that the imposition of a monitor over the company's affairs and an injunction preventing it from contacting clients, many of which are served by both freight carriers, was unfair.
 
Jeff Gray and Eric Atkins.