Acer Sues Former CEO

If you just got a huge severance package tied to a year long non-compete period (vacation) would you screw that up by working another job?

Acer said in a statement that there was a 12-month non-compete period in the agreement they had reached with Mr Lanci. “We believe Mr. Lanci has clearly breached the terms of the non-compete agreement he entered into willingly . . . we believe we have a very robust case,” Acer said.

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Non-compete clauses are crap. You cannot keep someone from working in their field. Best you can do in practice is a non-disclosure.

Curiously enough, he might have considered the cost of a lawsuit versus the benefit of taking up work with Lenovo along with the possibility that Acer would pursue legal action. It might very well be worth his while to have taken up work given the risks though that will likely depend on the outcome of the lawsuit.

There are many articles on this on the web, but one says that he was "forced out." If that's true, then it's doubtful Acer will triumph. For a non-compete clause to apply, it almost always has to be an employee-initiated separation.

Overall, the courts aren't liking these clauses and most of the time won't uphold them, except in blatant cases.

Silly people, rules are meant for lesser mortals not, CEOs!

ChrisNH said:

Non-compete clauses are crap. You cannot keep someone from working in their field. Best you can do in practice is a non-disclosure.

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Yes, total crap. I would hate being paid $30-$50 million dollars to stay at home and vacation. I mean, I'd probably go traveling around the world, staying in five star hotels, I could go back to univeristy and refresh from of my skills in some masters or phd courses. My god, life would be rough.

WBurchnall said:

Yes, total crap. I would hate being paid $30-$50 million dollars to stay at home and vacation. I mean, I'd probably go traveling around the world, staying in five star hotels, I could go back to univeristy and refresh from of my skills in some masters or phd courses. My god, life would be rough.

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No shit.

How hollow and empty must your life be if all you can think of to do is work.

If someone wants to give me a multimillion dollar severance package I will agree to never work again...

mrpc9886 said:

No shit.

How hollow and empty must your life be if all you can think of to do is work.

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No kidding, this guy's 'punishment' in the contract if you could call it that is most people's DREAM. Getting a year off from work and $30-$50 million to spend? That's like winning the lottery only several times more.

I can think of at least 100 extremely fun ways to spend a year spending that money. I think I'd start by making a quad-GPU system with 4x7970s /w equivilent cpu/memory/hard drive space and still have just barely touched the surface of that 30-50 million. I'd probably take that PC and go fly to some tropical paradise and spend some time tanning, reading a book, the occasional dirnks on the beach, some late night gaming, sleeping in, swimming a bit in the ocean the next day, scuba diving near coral reefs, etc etc. After, maybe taking one of those 8-12 week all-inclusive visit every city in Europe trips and then go on a luxury cruise or two. Not a regular luxury curse but the actual first-class airplane equivilent luxury cruise of luxury cruises.

Mannn, this poor CEO. I feel for him I tell ya.

This guy most certainly called his lawyer and came to the conclusion that the non-compete was bullshit. As they often are. There are a few states that still prop up this type of legislation even though it is doomed to fail at the highest level.

Sounds to me like there was a vote of no confidence from the board. Or there was likely to be soon anyway. You can't claim someone is incompetent in job function and then ask that they not exercise that competency, or lack there of, somewhere else.

I do find it disturbing that people continue to sign these things. Every time I have been asked, I refuse. If your future employer tries to make you sign a statement saying you will not compete if you move on, then you should be a little bit concerned with how you will be treated while you are there. After all, they seem to lose so many employees to greener pastures that they require you to sign a form saying that you will not employ yourself. That doesn't breed confidence.

There is bound to be people that will tell me how wrong I am. How these agreements are the norm in the industry. Signing away your constitutional rights is never normal and I'm pretty sure you can't actually sign them away anyhow.

A non-disclosure agreement is a very different thing though. That is how these types of disputes should be handled. The burden of proof is then on the former employer to show how you breached NDA by divulging trade secrets. They then try to extrapolate that into power they don't actually have. It is easy to prove that you have been employed by a competitor. It is not easy to prove you divulged trade secrets.

Either way, the man did indeed sign the contract. I find myself torn and almost wishing the judgement to be against the defendant for his disregard of his own personal rights.

BallerX said:

There are a few states that still prop up this type of legislation even though it is doomed to fail at the highest level.

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According to the full article, legal action is being taken in Italy so state law and an appeal to a higher court within the United States does not apply.

The basic priciple is this:

"When I signed the agreement, it was with the understanding that, if I were to voluntarily terminate my employment, it would not be because I had found a job with a company competing against yours, nor would I be terminating with the intention of looking for one."

"However, since you, for all practical purposes, terminated me, then you cannot enforce a clause that prohibits me from working in the sector for which I am most qualified to work, unless you can prove that I deliberately behaved in such a way to cause terminiation to negate this clause for the purpose of circumventing and competing."

The logic of this should be unversal where you are.

Acer should STFU. No, I'm not trolling so don't send some British newsman after me. I have a point. This guy failed as a CEO, missed trends that were developing and as a result ended up costing Acer money. Thing is he did this in the territory he's now working for Lenovo in.

Acer should sit back and wait for him to work his magic and drag Lenovo down. It can only work to their advantage.

WBurchnall said:

Yes, total crap. I would hate being paid $30-$50 million dollars to stay at home and vacation. I mean, I'd probably go traveling around the world, staying in five star hotels, I could go back to univeristy and refresh from of my skills in some masters or phd courses. My god, life would be rough.

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+1000

That guy was such a tool!