Hiring people with trade secrets

About eight months ago I posted Leaving a job with a non-compete? Got any savings for the litigation expenses? and then I published Non-Competition Agreement and Trade secrets - local news. In those posts I wrote about the dangers of hiring someone with a noncompete agreement or a non-compete agreement and possessing trade secrets.

I would generally say that if there are trade secrets then a non-competition agreement is mandatory. Then today I ran across this article from Business Insurance: Arch misappropriated Gen Re trade secrets: Judge.

Connecticut Superior Court Judge Taggart Adams on Wednesday ordered Arch not to use or divulge any Gen Re proprietary information or trade secrets, including loss cost data that the judge concluded Arch officials were using to compete with Gen Re.

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None of the four top officials had employment contracts or noncompete agreements with Gen Re. Nevertheless, the Stamford, Conn.-based reinsurer sued Arch and the four executives variously for breach of fiduciary duties, tortious interference with business contracts and violations of a state trade secrets law.

So much for general rules? No. I still want a noncompetition agreement for these type of employees. After all, an ounce of prevention does save the client business in attorney fees. (What is better for good lawyer-client relations than keeping fees reasonable and keeping the business well-protected).

For my other posts on trade secrets just click on the link below that reads "Label: trade secrets". You can do the same for my non-compete agreements posts.