The managing director of an IT job-board has narrowly escaped penalties in the latest twist of an ongoing court case.

Andy Richards, managing director of RDL, which runs the IT e-cruiter Skillsite, had already been found to have raided rival site Jobserve’s database for candidate’s CV data.

But Jobserve discovered that Skillsite’s database also still held thousands of CVs, in breach of a previous court ruling.

Jobserve launched a complaint in October and the high court of justice this month ruled that Richards was in contempt of court. But after hearings he escaped without a penalty. Richards said that the same candidates had re-applied to his site and he was powerless to prevent this.

Robbie Cowling (pictured), managing director of Jobserve, said: “This matter should have been dead and buried two years ago.”