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I shouldn't have mentioned NDAs there to relate to customer lists, it got left in that paragraph after I trimmed the comment down a lot. Taking customer data wo

I shouldn't have mentioned NDAs there to relate to customer lists, it got left in that paragraph after I trimmed the comment down a lot. Taking customer data would be considered as a form of corporate espionage. There are so many different types of "knowledge you obtained", there's no one size fits all answer. If it's generic training, no issue. If it's learning an industry standard practice, no issue. If it's years of solving problems, and having an intuition about solving a new, unrelated problem, no issue. If it's taking a list of customers and contact details, that's commercially sensitive data and a big issue. If you were personal friends with say 5 of the 20 customers, and could show you regularly met outside of a work context then you could arguably show that you hadn't stolen commercial data, you'd just contacted old friends. You might be opening yourself up to undeclared conflict of interest problems though. If through your work you knew of a secret process that was better than the rest of the industry and provided a competitive advantage, and then the new employer you left with also started that technique, that's a big issue and you'd have a real job to prove you weren't stealing secrets. If some technique had already been made public, e.g. by a patent, and your experience allowed someone to replicate the method in the patent, then you'd probably be OK, but then opening up the new employer to a patent infringement case. If it's a non-patented process improvement to a well known process, then probably fine. If you were a high level manager for e.g. Intel and moved to an unrelated tech company, no issue. If you moved to another chip manufacturer, it'd be very hard to prove that you didn't ever make any decisions based on the commercially sensitive information you learned at the previous company. Maybe your new employer might want you to take gardening leave in many cases to protect them from liability of claims for corporate espionage. Alternatively, it might be prudent for the employee to make sure he works on projects at the new company that don't relate to their old work. But essentially, it all boils down to how what the commercially sensitive material is and much damage might be caused by that being given to a competitor. This is where it's back to NDA territory. If you know any company information that's not public knowledge, then there isn't a term limit for when you're allowed to talk about it. Obviously, the longer it's been, the less relevant it's going to be commercially sensitive, and so the less likely you'd be sued for divulging trade secrets, but it totally depends on what that situation is. I also don't think the situation would be wildly different compared to the US. I'm pretty sure Coca Cola would sue someone who knew the recipe for Coke and decided to leak it, and they'd probably win regardless of when they left the company, because maintaining that secret is still critical to their ongoing business.

pandaman 2y ago
>Taking customer data would be considered as a form of corporate espionage Again, the same point: if you left the job where you used customer data then how do you deal with that data in your memory? Either you don't give any reason to believe you used it, least you're getting charged with espionage and this would include not working for the competition, effective putting you under indefinite unpaid non-compete. Or you don't perform your job duties, and this gives no reason for someone to pay you. If it's really like this in UK, I can see how you can think non-competes are not needed. I'd rather have an American non-compete where I get money and a defined term though.
- ralferoo 2y ago
  Maybe you want to give an example of a specific type of data, but I think I covered everything I can think of. I think there's a big difference between "data" and understanding principles of something. If you knowingly use "data" that your old employer hasn't made public for the benefit of your new employer, then you are probably not acting ethically. If your new employer is interested in you because of the things you know that they don't have access too, you are definitely not acting ethically. If you happen to know something that gives you an advantage, you can probably make advantage of it without disclosing that proprietary information to your new employer. Example: you now know that all avenues of trying to do X don't produce results. If you want to do Y at the new company, you can just not waste your time doing X, but you don't need to say why, and suggest trying a different approach. If someone else insists on doing X, you could still say that you think it's a bad idea, and suggest general reasons why, but probably you shouldn't say "No, at Blah we tried variants of X many times and it never worked." You can't unlearn the things you know, but you can handle that information ethically. Generally people have a pretty good read if what they're doing is ethical or not. Whether you're in breach of a non-compete would ideally be exactly the same as whether you acted unethically or not. The purpose of enforcing the non-compete is to try to prevent the situation happening. In the UK, we rarely have non-competes and where we do, it'd have to go to a court to determine if you acted unethically or not (assuming honouring the contract is ethical) and attempting to prove if you did or not and/or the damage caused if you didn't. But like, I say, there's a big difference between "data" (which you seem concerned about) and something you know/learned (which seems to be what your argument is predicated on). Using "data" would be corporate espionage, using something you learned because you understand the concept wouldn't be. > effective putting you under indefinite unpaid non-compete Not really, because most people do the decent thing, and there is generally no reason to suspect otherwise, and so these things never even go to court. If the company is convinced you have appropriated trade secrets, it probably will. But people aren't under "indefinite unpaid non-compete" because most people just do the decent thing, and so most people are assumed to do the decent thing, and people just start their new job and get on with life. Non-compete agreements going to court almost never happens. But it's important to add that I think this issue of trade secrets is different to non-compete, because years after you leave a company, if you leaked proprietary information of theirs that is still important in giving them a commercial advantage, you should expect to get sued even if you'd had a period of obeying a non-compete.

pandaman 2y ago

>Taking customer data would be considered as a form of corporate espionage Again, the same point: if you left the job where you used customer data then how do you deal with that data in your memory? Either you don't give any reason to believe you used it, least you're getting charged with espionage and this would include not working for the competition, effective putting you under indefinite unpaid non-compete. Or you don't perform your job duties, and this gives no reason for someone to pay you. If it's really like this in UK, I can see how you can think non-competes are not needed. I'd rather have an American non-compete where I get money and a defined term though.

ralferoo 2y ago
Maybe you want to give an example of a specific type of data, but I think I covered everything I can think of. I think there's a big difference between "data" and understanding principles of something. If you knowingly use "data" that your old employer hasn't made public for the benefit of your new employer, then you are probably not acting ethically. If your new employer is interested in you because of the things you know that they don't have access too, you are definitely not acting ethically. If you happen to know something that gives you an advantage, you can probably make advantage of it without disclosing that proprietary information to your new employer. Example: you now know that all avenues of trying to do X don't produce results. If you want to do Y at the new company, you can just not waste your time doing X, but you don't need to say why, and suggest trying a different approach. If someone else insists on doing X, you could still say that you think it's a bad idea, and suggest general reasons why, but probably you shouldn't say "No, at Blah we tried variants of X many times and it never worked." You can't unlearn the things you know, but you can handle that information ethically. Generally people have a pretty good read if what they're doing is ethical or not. Whether you're in breach of a non-compete would ideally be exactly the same as whether you acted unethically or not. The purpose of enforcing the non-compete is to try to prevent the situation happening. In the UK, we rarely have non-competes and where we do, it'd have to go to a court to determine if you acted unethically or not (assuming honouring the contract is ethical) and attempting to prove if you did or not and/or the damage caused if you didn't. But like, I say, there's a big difference between "data" (which you seem concerned about) and something you know/learned (which seems to be what your argument is predicated on). Using "data" would be corporate espionage, using something you learned because you understand the concept wouldn't be. > effective putting you under indefinite unpaid non-compete Not really, because most people do the decent thing, and there is generally no reason to suspect otherwise, and so these things never even go to court. If the company is convinced you have appropriated trade secrets, it probably will. But people aren't under "indefinite unpaid non-compete" because most people just do the decent thing, and so most people are assumed to do the decent thing, and people just start their new job and get on with life. Non-compete agreements going to court almost never happens. But it's important to add that I think this issue of trade secrets is different to non-compete, because years after you leave a company, if you leaked proprietary information of theirs that is still important in giving them a commercial advantage, you should expect to get sued even if you'd had a period of obeying a non-compete.