A New Brunswick judge has rejected an injunction requested by Irving-owned Brunswick News Inc. to prevent a former publisher from soliciting advertisers for a competing paper.

Justice Peter Glennie of the province's top court denied the application Friday afternoon, in a decision that took 1½ hours to read.

Brunswick News, which owns all the province's daily papers and most of the weeklies, alleged that William Kenneth Langdon, the former publisher of the Woodstock Bugle-Observer, took confidential documents from the newspaper to help establish a competing weekly publication in New Brunswick's Carleton County. 

Langdon said he deleted the files and had no intention of using them to compete unfairly against the Irving newspaper.

Langdon joined the Carleton Free Press, owned by Dwight Fraser, as publisher after leaving the Bugle in September. The Free Press published its first issue Tuesday without Langdon, who was under a court injunction during the case.

Brunswick News initially sought an injunction to ban Langdon from doing business or having any contact with anyone who had anything to do with the Bugle. The injunction request changed last week, opting instead to have Langdon banned from soliciting business from 15 key local advertisers.

Glennie denied the application, but did offer a partial injunction prohibiting Langdon from using confidential Brunswick News information and from enticing Bugle employees to breach their work obligations.

He said that Langdon has the right to earn a livelihood and the company cannot claim a monopoly on advertisers.

Additionally, Glennie said the principle of free competition trumped the request to restrict Langdon from soliciting advertisers.

Both Langdon and the Carleton Free Press had claimed the lawsuit was intended to prevent a competing newspaper from entering the market, saying the paper would not be viable without those advertisers.

Langdon called the decision a victory. The lawyer for Irving said the company was satisfied with the decision.