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Microsoft Sues Google For Hiring MS Exec
bonch writes "So it begins...Microsoft is suing Google for wooing away a top executive to work in a China research lab. Microsoft is accusing Kai-Fu Lee of breaking his contract by taking a job within a year of leaving Microsoft, and accused Google of 'intentionally assisting Lee.' Google describes the claims as 'completely without merit' and vows to defend against them."
Non-compete clauses are quite common in many higher end tech jobs and have been upheld for the most part provided the terms of agreement are not unreasonable. A lifetime agreement not to work for the competition would quickly get thrown out, however a year or two long within a specific sector or industry would be just fine expect where prohibited by law... California IIRC expressly forbids non-compete clauses, however I could be wrong as it's been a while since I looked into it.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
Suing over employee "poaching" is pretty common business practice in some countries. If he had a one-year non-compete clause in the contract, and if it is valid, then it seems reasonable.
The question is of course what the legal standing is of such a clause in China. In many countries such an employment clause is normally non-enforceable, since you always have a right to do your trade. There you would rather have some monetary incentive, like paid salary during theyear and a bonus payout at the end, which, all considered, probably is a better idea all around (people are much more likely to actually comply with something they see as a positive).
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Always check your contract. This could be considered a restraint of trade matter but can be binding in some jurisdictions. Particularly if it involves moving to work for a competitor where you could be deemed to have insider info of the prior employer's business and/or planning or IP.
This can especially be the case in game development circles.
>Should I sign it?
What do you call someone who gets legal advice from Slashdot?
"Inmate".
Point out the relevant clauses to the other 10 people. They're not going to fire you all unless the company is already in terminal condition. And get your legal advice from a lawyer, specifically a labor lawyer.
1) Get a Lawyer.
2) Make a copy of the Contract...
3) Becouse they are now negotiatiting the contract feel free to add clauses and remove items that will bring it more into line of what you want.
4) Be aware that there is a chance they will not accept this and will terminate your employment.
Microsoft can sue till they turn blue, but, until the us courts have jurasdiction in china, it wont matter one tiny little bit. I suspect we'll have snowballs in hell prior to seeing us courts having jurasdiction in china.
I have no pity for MS.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
This is nonsense. It's called "experience". What, you forget everything you learned at a job when you leave the place? I wouldn't want to employ you.
Experience is different to "inside knowledge".
For example:
I may have 3 years experience and knowledge of CRM systems and I can take that with me to another company - that's fine.
On the other hand, going to another company and sharing inside info like future corporate stratgies, plans, customer data, etc is unethical and not what I'd call experience.
"Who says nothing is impossible? Some people do it every day!" - Alfred E. Neuman
You need to get out florida. California law defines that things you do on your own time is yours no matter what contract you sign. Non competes are only valid for execs but not normal people
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
You are right - California forbids non-competition clauses:
Google is based in California, but the contract was signed in Washington, so I'm not sure if that helps.
All execs that i know of have no competes. Pepsi can't simply go farm execs out of coke. We are talking about regular employees, we are talking about executives.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
Walmart got 7 figures out of Amazon for some VP in fulfilment. I think it was Rick Dalzell, but I'm not sure on that one. The suit claimed something like illegal recruitment.
I work in the film industry, and I just signed a development deal with a production unit for a studio.
This is the fourth such contract I've been offered.
The first had outrageous terms like:
a. loss of intellectual property rights, including ancillary sources of revenue, including revenue streams not yet invented. (I fully intended on pre-selling ancillary rights and continue to do so)
b. they tried to cover up my development budget by terming it an advance against my share of profits from future films I developed. (5% of developed movies get made, and 8% of those turn enough of a profit to ensure flowthrough revenue to the writer/director. this would ensure that i'd be indebted to the studio for a long time. think of this the next time your favorite director decides to headline a Harlequin romance)
c. contract has an initial term of 5 years, but is automatically renewed (I don't need to sign a renewal) up until they decide they're done with me.
There were some other shady terms. It was the shadiest contract ever. The producer in question assured me that the contract was standard. I consulted an attorney who ripped it to shreds.
GET AN ATTORNEY. GET AN ATTORNEY. It'll take a decent lawyer a couple of hours to go through that contract and translate for you, and you won't get fscked. A lot of these contracts are intimidation tactics.
The development deal I actually just signed is with the same guys, for way better terms. GET AN ATTORNEY.
un burrito me trampeó.
Because by inducing him to breach his contract with Microsoft, Google is committing the tort of interference.
In Washington state, where MS HQ resides, judges look at the scope of the non-compete clause. If the clause states that you cannot work in your industry at all, anywhere, for a period of time, it's usually thrown out, since you have the right to make a living for yourself. But if the non-compete clause states a reasonable scope, it will generally be upheld. For instance, I worked for a Seattle-area consulting company that did work in Alaska, Washington, Idaho, and Oregon. It's a small market, and competition is high in the field. My non-compete stated that I could not get a job in my field with another company in those states for a period of one year. If I had wanted to quit and get a job in that same field, I would have had to leave the area. Because the market is such as it is, the scope of the non-compete was reasonable. I think the nature of the non-compete agreement, in addition to the rest of the contract, needs to be taken into consideration. I honestly don't think we're getting the full story. Not that I'm surprised, of course.
'Rora
80's Cartoons Central
Google had contacts with the state of Washington, or if not at the very least with the United States, so there is jurisdiction within the United States, and Washington choice of law would probably apply.
There isn't much of a civil procedure issue here.
The results you like to say are absolute are no where near that. A LOT depends on the state where you live, if you live in Texas for instance it can invalidate most generic restrictive contracts cocerning employment with a competitor. See http://www.akllp.com/Page.aspx?Doc_ID=2244, It's a very long and detailed legal and public policy and seperation of powers white paper but can be summed up as " ... the clear message is to avoid overreaching, vague and overly broad non-compete agreements. Thought must be invested in every such agreement to insure appropriate application to the facts applicable to the particular employee and marketplace-and no more restrictive than absolutely necessary to protect the good will and business of the employer. Pure non-competition agreements should be supplemented by other types of agreements, such as non-disclosure agreements and agreements not to solicit customers. Those types of agreements may be more enforceable."
It is a state by state issue it seems so there is NOT an absolute case to be made for either side winning.
Most states enforce non-compete agreements provided they are not "unreasonable" as to scope and duration (e.g. you can't work at our direct competitor in this state for 6 months = probably ok in many cases, versus you can't work for 5 years for anyone, anywhere = court will laugh contract out of court)
Here in California we have adopted a law specifically nullifying non-compete agreements. The policy is that industry (including high tech) benefits from a mobile labor force. Ever wonder why high tech industries are so big in California? This is one of the reasons. It's not just the fact that we teach science in science class rather than religion.
Actually you could be convicted of murder.
Throwing someone into 2' of water may constitute asault (a felony in most states). If the individual drowns as a result of your action you may be tried and found guilty of felony murder.
The argument is that your action could forseeably have caused harm. As a result, you happen to be partially accountable for the murder.
Right on. Step into the wayback machine a few years back. That great sucking sound was the human assets of Borland being sucked out the front door into MS-supplied limos waiting in front with trunks full-o-cash.
This toss up of suing Google is just so much dodgeball. They both know nothing will come of it. MS is just farking with them.
The interesting part is, near as I can tell, MS hasn't done this with any other company, sued them for poaching, at least with such visibility, nor in some time. It is interesting that someone could hire away some exec from MS, and not just someone, but Google. MS might not give a rat's ass if it was some otherwise unknown, but Google?...they gotta hate that. That perhaps stung a bit.
Wasn't M$ sued by the government, M$ lost, and was ordered to split into 2 seperate companies?
That's hardly an acurate summary of events, even for slashdot.
" That's right. Because capitalism benefits when companies keep secrets."
Yes. Your sarcasm aside, investors aren't going to spend money developing IP if your competitor gets all that knowledge for free (as in beer). That is the basis for the patent system. You agree to discose your secrets, but your competitors can't use them without paying you royalties for a period of time. It keeps people from reverse engineering products to take advantage of another company's IP.
Vote for Pedro
As has been stated, noncompetition contracts are pretty standard in a lot of feilds and are perfectly valid and generally well thought out.
While I worked at Target I was forbidden from working at another retail store in direct competition with Target, ie: Shopko, Wal-Mart, K-Mart etc. Given that employees recieve advanced notice of sales and product changes I can see why the business wouldn't want to pay you to tell their competitors what they're doing.
Currently I work for an electronic assets management company handing data destruction and electronics recycling and refurbishing. Their noncompete basically states that for 180 days after leaving I wont start a business that does the exact same thing in direct competition with the one I work for now. This also makes perfect sense, they have done a lot of work to figure out effective organization and management and to grow their organization, why should I be allowed to take their years of work, slap my name on it, and try to run them out of business?
Furthermore, I accidently posted this as a reply to different tangent and will now look like a moron for all to see.
You're thinking of David N. Cutler, the chief architect of both DEC VMS and Windows NT 3.5. However that particular headhunt had its dark side since code in put into NT by Cutler or one of his ex-DEC cohorts allowed DEC to sue Microsoft for illegal copying from VMS. Woops.
Much more successful was the raiding of Anders Hejlsberg, the original author of Turbo Pascal, who went on to head Microsoft's C# development group. His departure marked the beginning of a steady decline for Borland.
Laissez lire, et laissez danser; ces deux amusements ne feront jamais de mal au monde. - Voltaire
It may be in there, but it's unenforceable to make someone not work in the area which produces their living.
However, there is such a thing as 'gardening leave', where they _pay_ you for taking X amount of time off. As they are still paying you, you are still under their employ and hence can be forbidden to take another job.
You're thinking of David N. Cutler, the chief architect of both DEC VMS and Windows NT 3.5. However that particular headhunt had its dark side since code in put into NT by Cutler or one of his ex-DEC cohorts allowed DEC to sue Microsoft for illegal copying from VMS. Woops.
Of course, DEC didn't win the lawsuit against Microsoft (it was settled), so we'll never know if there was any merit to the claims. On a basic level, VMS was written in VAX assembly, where as NT was written in C, so it's extremely unlikely any actual VMS code was stolen by Cutler and his team. After all, why steal assembly code written for an architecture NT never had any intention of supporting?
Given that Cutler had been designing DEC's operating systems since the 1970s, what is plausible is that he and his team used similar design ideas in NT to those they had previously used in VMS. As for whether or not American law protects that sort of thing, I've not the faintest idea, but from DEC's perspective, given its financial difficulties, it was certainly worth a try. From Microsoft's side, it was probably cheaper to settle and offer a 'special relationship' (including an Alpha port of NT) to DEC than to fight the lawsuit, and definitely in Microsoft's interests, given the level of performance offered by Alpha.
The other important thing is that Cutler and his team left DEC because DEC management had cancelled their project, called Prism (it was later revived as Alpha). It was less a case of Microsoft poaching them than of DEC management driving them away by cancelling their project and focussing instead on the dead-end VAX architecture (although DEC management eventually realised their mistake, hence Alpha, but it was too little, too late).
In other words, if Microsoft hadn't made an offer to Cutler et al, odds are they would have gone somewhere else. Given the sense of betrayal they felt towards DEC management, it's extremely unlikely that they would have stuck around there, and gone back to working on VAX/VMS.
Much more successful was the raiding of Anders Hejlsberg, the original author of Turbo Pascal, who went on to head Microsoft's C# development group. His departure marked the beginning of a steady decline for Borland.
Poaching Hejlsberg, amongst others, was certainly a coup for Microsoft, but Borland did sue Microsoft over the matter. The lawsuit was eventually settled, so it can't be said with certainty that Hejlsberg or others who left Borland for Microsoft did violate their contracts, assuming they even included non-compete clauses, but it's certainly plausible.
Not only that, but it should probably be deemed unfair in court anyway. Unable to do a personal website? That's not even related, unless he spits out a load of secrets on it. The company is being unfair and/or paranoid.
im in ur
They still add the clauses but they are just invalid in Denmark.
To be valid in Denmark you need compensation, which has been established by Højesteret to be half salary during the period of non-competition.