Ubisoft Injuncts Tremblay For Joining Vivendi

simoniker writes "According to an Ubisoft statement, the company has obtained an injunction against Martin Tremblay, who recently left as Ubisoft Montreal head to run Vivendi Games, in an attempt to enforce a non-compete clause. This is particularly notable/ironic because Tremblay was in charge of Ubisoft Montreal's previous aggressive attempts to enforce its non-compete for game developers who left to join EA Montreal - the whole situation again brings up the discussion of whether non-compete clauses are at all sensible."

Comments

First (bad) pun?

[secolactico]

I'm sure Martin is tremblaying in his shoes right now.

AAAARGH!

Bah!

[Pig Hogger]

Bah!

Québec labour laws are extremely liberal towards workers (heck, here is the only place where Wall-Marde stores have successfully unionized - make sure you check the edit wars on Wikipedia), so it is very likely that they will be told to pound sand...

Stupid

[The Snowman]

I don't know about the legality of such clauses since I am not a lawyer (but I am inclined to think they are legal), but I do think they're dumb. What it does is close doors for the employee. Fired? Don't like your job? Too bad, you can't work for a competitor. While this doesn't lock the employee out of the industry entirely, it does restrict them from a specific area, for example, game companies, security companies, OS companies, etc. So you have tons of C++ and graphics experience working for a game company? Well now you can learn a whole new skillset with Java, Oracle, AJAX, etc. and go write web applications. Sure, it's still programming, but it's totally different technology, different programming paradigm, and requires time to adjust.

Gun, meet foot. Pull trigger.

So here's what I want to know.

[MAXOMENOS]

What's this guy supposed to do between now and when his NCA expires?

Wait for Godot?

Work in another field?

Hope that two years of letting his valuable skills sit unused won't affect his marketability?

Eh?

quick English lesson

[matthewn]

Heads up: You cannot "injunct" something. That ain't a word. The verb you do when you file an injunction is "enjoin." So, "Ubisoft ENJOINS Tremblay FROM Joining Vivendi."

Re:quick English lesson

[sglider]

Sounds like an malformed SQL statement. You forgot the ;