When your employee told you that they were leaving to work for another company, you were surprised. They had great benefits with you, and you felt like they were treated very well. Unfortunately, even after negotiating, you couldn’t get them to stay.
When they signed on to work with your company, you had them sign a confidentiality agreement. Your company’s personal information includes data and schematics that could hurt your company if it falls into the hands of competitors. Additionally, your employees work closely on projects, so the last thing you want is for them to take ideas and give them to your competitors.
You didn’t expect the agreement to be breached, but you soon found out that they’d shared some proprietary information with a competitor they went to work for. Now, you need to take legal steps quickly to prevent the other business from benefiting from your employees’ hard work. What should you do now?
You can sue over a breach of confidentiality
There are steps you may be able to take to prevent the other company from using the ill-gotten information, but even if you can’t stop the company from using your work, you can sue the individual who breached the confidentiality agreement. If the other company makes a profit off the information gathered from your past employee, then you could show that there was theft and that the employee stole work that was under a confidentiality agreement.
If you want to pursue a claim over a breach of confidentiality, you may be able to do so. Take the employee’s contract and any other information you have to your attorney to review your case.