A bruising legal battle has erupted between two heavyweight Atlantic seaboard property figures, with claims of poaching, broken promises and underhanded tactics to win lucrative business.
Former Auction Alliance CEO Rael Levitt’s company Inospace has taken former employee Ryan Morris — now co-owner of rival firm StackOne Fulfilment with estate agent Jacques Weber — to court, accusing him of poaching clients.
A judgment handed down by the high court in Cape Town on Tuesday shows that Morris and Weber previously worked at Inospace and had signed restraint-of-trade agreements.
Inospace asked the court to bar Morris and StackOne from “soliciting” its clients. Judge James Lekhuleni ruled in Inospace’s favour and ordered Morris and StackOne to pay legal costs.
In an affidavit, Inospace operations manager Dean Venske said Morris had worked at the company from 2021 until his resignation on June 30 this year. His contract contained a 12-month restraint, barring him from joining or starting a competing firm or soliciting business from Inospace clients or prospects.
“Inospace recently learned that Morris had taken up employment with... [StackOne], a business recently incorporated as a direct competitor of Inospace and which appears to have been incorporated to specifically facilitate Morris’ competing with Inospace,” Venske said.
He claimed two clients, including the company’s second-largest in the fulfilment division, had left since Morris’s departure and moved their business to StackOne. Venske said Inospace did not want to block Morris from earning a living but argued he had breached the restraint by “unlawfully soliciting” clients. He said Inospace had trained Morris, who rose to head its fulfilment division, and accused him of dishonesty when asked about his future plans.
Inospace is described as a real estate platform focused on last-mile logistics and technology-enabled warehouse solutions.
According to Venske, Morris was placed on gardening leave due to his seniority. During this time, Levitt discussed relaxing the restraint to allow him to work, but before an agreement was finalised, Inospace discovered one of its clients was already using StackOne’s services and that Morris was running the business.
While I departed on relatively good terms, one of the reasons for my resignation was that Levitt and I had disagreements ... which put strain on our relationship
— Jacques Weber in his affidavit
“Thus, it appears that Morris had been dealing with Inospace in bad faith in seeking a relaxation of the restraint of trade and that he had misrepresented his true intentions to Levitt and Inospace to achieve such relaxation,” the affidavit read.
Venske said StackOne, registered in May, was clearly complicit. He said Weber, Inospace’s former COO, had been closely involved in setting up its fulfilment division before resigning, and had brought Morris into the firm in 2021. The two were friends, he said.
Morris opposed the application, dismissing it as based on “a number of statements which are either highly misleading or patently untrue”. He claimed it was driven by personal hostility between Levitt and Weber.
“This underlying motive ... serves only to reinforce the impression that [Inospace] is abusing court processes to pursue a private vendetta rather than seeking to vindicate any legitimate right,” his affidavit read.
Morris denied soliciting clients. He said that after Weber resigned, hostility towards him increased, with Levitt and Venske blaming him for operational problems.
He said Inospace faced numerous complaints about late deliveries and poor communication. When Weber revealed plans to start his own business after his restraint expired, Morris said he was offered an equal share in the venture.
“Most clients were sorry to see me go and left it at that. A handful asked me what I was going to do, and I told them I was going to be in a similar business,” the affidavit reads.
He said some clients indicated they were unhappy with Inospace and asked whether they could move with him, but he reminded them of his restraint clause. Three clients, however, later enquired about following him to StackOne. Morris asked the court to strike the matter off the roll.
Weber said he had worked at Inospace for about seven years before resigning in 2024. He claimed he had already “begun conceptualising” his business but had waited for his restraint to expire.
He insisted the lawsuit stemmed from Levitt’s hostility after disagreements over his remuneration package, particularly bonuses.
“While I departed on relatively good terms, one of the reasons for my resignation was that Levitt and I had disagreements ... which put strain on our relationship,” Weber said in his affidavit.
He said the fallout worsened after a company he was a director of terminated a commercial partnership with Inospace.
Weber, like Morris, asked the court to strike the matter off the roll.
However, Lekhuleni ruled in favour of Inospace, interdicting Morris from breaching the restraint of trade agreement for 12 months, from the date of July 1 2025. StackOne was interdicted for 12 months from “canvassing or soliciting business [or attempting to do so] from the clients of Inospace”.
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