Amazon Suing Employee For Taking A Job At Google

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The moral of the story? If you sign a non-compete agreement, you are legally obligated to honor that agreement. You can still take a job elsewhere, you just have to wait the required time limit. Am I missing something?

Amazon is suing a former Amazon Web Services strategic partnerships manager, Zoltan Szabadi, alleging that his new job at Google Cloud Platform violates the terms of a non-compete agreement that he signed when he originally joined Amazon.
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I don't think anyone has ever successfully enforced this in CA, so GL Amazon?
 
These non-compete shit needs to stop, especially among these large Corps. Comcast and their vendors are notorious with there contracting and this shit. Although majority of the time it was a scared tactic to sue.
 
Steve said:
The moral of the story? If you sign a non-compete agreement, you are legally obligated to honor that agreement.?
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Maybe, maybe not, but courts rarely side with the company if they try to enforce. Non-competes exist only as a bluff. I say this as a manager at an IT consulting firm where all my guys come from our competitors and if one of my guys leave they are probably going to a competitor.
 
In general, non-competition clauses for employment are only enforceable if the violation involves trade secrets.
 
They filed the suit in Seatle (not California) so we will see if they get home court advantage or not ... and they might still win a concession (like they did the last time they filed a suit like this) where the employee is banned from recruiting Amazon customers or employees for a time (the last suit was 9 months) ... that does seem fair ... although I support people who need to use their technical skills it should be illegal for sales and marketing types to move from one company to another and take their company contacts with them
 
HA HA Amazon.. idiots... yeah a judge is going to tell someone they are not allowed to work for 2 years and need to go on unemployment until a paper releases someone... these NEVER get enforced, it's total BS.
 
kring said:
HA HA Amazon.. idiots... yeah a judge is going to tell someone they are not allowed to work for 2 years and need to go on unemployment until a paper releases someone... these NEVER get enforced, it's total BS.
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They aren't asking him to do that ... they are only asking him to abstain from helping Google hire other Amazon employees or for him to approach Amazon customers or strategic partners for 6 months ... the last person they sued over this same thing was required to avoid Amazon customers for 9 months by the judge ... seems like a reasonable request by Amazon so I give them a fighting chance
 
kbrickley said:
They filed the suit in Seatle (not California) so we will see if they get home court advantage or not ... and they might still win a concession (like they did the last time they filed a suit like this) where the employee is banned from recruiting Amazon customers or employees for a time (the last suit was 9 months) ... that does seem fair ... although I support people who need to use their technical skills it should be illegal for sales and marketing types to move from one company to another and take their company contacts with them
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That is illegal and enforceable, though not for eternity. If a rep leaves they generally can't contact customers they gained at the previous company for a year. I suspect if the company tried a longer duration than a year they wouldn't be able to enforce. Same with my consultants, if they want to leave for a competitor I'm not going to sue them but they can't go into my customer base for a year. We have sued and have been sued for doing that, plaintiffs won in both cases.

On the flipside a lot of reps will bring new accounts to a company when they are hired and a condition of them accepting the offer is that these accounts are exempt from any non-compete. So in essence they can keep that core group of customers with them wherever they go.
 
Taco said:
That is illegal and enforceable, though not for eternity. If a rep leaves they generally can't contact customers they gained at the previous company for a year. I suspect if the company tried a longer duration than a year they wouldn't be able to enforce. Same with my consultants, if they want to leave for a competitor I'm not going to sue them but they can't go into my customer base for a year. We have sued and have been sued for doing that, plaintiffs won in both cases.

On the flipside a lot of reps will bring new accounts to a company when they are hired and a condition of them accepting the offer is that these accounts are exempt from any non-compete. So in essence they can keep that core group of customers with them wherever they go.
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The article said Amazon only asked for 6 months so I would assume the employee blatantly disregarded this and either immediately approached Amazon customers, Amazon employees, or both ... 6 months seems more than reasonable (especially since the last court case that Amazon sued over actually granted them 9 months) ... maybe the court can jack up the time to 9 months like the last time to teach the employee to not disregard extremely favorable exit conditions ;)
 
You can agree in a contract that the sky is green or down is up. That does not make it true or legally enforceable.
 
Zinn said:
You can agree in a contract that the sky is green or down is up. That does not make it true or legally enforceable.
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The courts will decide ... the court allowed 9 months the last time ... hopefully they will get the same again ... Amazon gave him EXTREMELY lenient exit terms (don't poach employees or customers for 6 months) ... my former employer asked executives to commit to a year (and they usually withheld any outstanding payments, like bonuses if one refused to sign) ... I was just a peon and switching roles when I left so I didn't run into a non-compete clause (and I never signed an IP clause granting the company ownership of anything I created on company time or property) ... but I have no issue with companies that want to do that, especially for executives who I feel are less entitled to legal protections than normal employees
 
One thing I have always wondered about non-compete agreements concerns those who have specific skills in the field they work or their skills are limited to that field. For instance, Suppose a game developer works for Ubisoft and Ubisoft has him sign a non-compete contract. 5 years later Ubisoft does a round of layoffs and he is one of the employees laid off. Because of that non-compete agreement, is his whole career now completely screwed?
 
NeghVar said:
One thing I have always wondered about non-compete agreements concerns those who have specific skills in the field they work or their skills are limited to that field. For instance, Suppose a game developer works for Ubisoft and Ubisoft has him sign a non-compete contract. 5 years later Ubisoft does a round of layoffs and he is one of the employees laid off. Because of that non-compete agreement, is his whole career now completely screwed?
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In the vast majority of cases, that would be deemed an unreasonable agreement, and thrown out.
 
NeghVar said:
One thing I have always wondered about non-compete agreements concerns those who have specific skills in the field they work or their skills are limited to that field. For instance, Suppose a game developer works for Ubisoft and Ubisoft has him sign a non-compete contract. 5 years later Ubisoft does a round of layoffs and he is one of the employees laid off. Because of that non-compete agreement, is his whole career now completely screwed?
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I don't think non-compete clauses are used by reputable companies during layoffs ... at least at my employers they were targeted exclusively at upper level managers (to prevent them from stealing clients or employees) or for people with trade secret level knowledge (like the formula for Coke or the detailed proprietary design specs of computer chips and such and the NC terms only prevented them from using that specific knowledge for a certain time) ...

the IP clauses were trickier (which is why I only signed them when it was sign or leave requirements) ... depending on how they were written they could claim any IP you created on company time or facilities ... so if you thought up something on a business trip that you thought would make a good business idea and the company decided they wanted it they could claim all the IP for themselves ... didn't happen very often but that was the risk of IP contracts (which you usually sign on hiring into a company)
 
NeghVar said:
non-compete agreements are illegal in California

http://californianoncompete.com/

Question is whether of not a non-compete agreement signed in Washington is valid in a state which outlaws them. In this case, California.
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It doesn't appear as if he was working in California and the suit was filed in Washington ... unless Google gets a change of venue it will be tried under Washington State laws (not sure where they sit on NC clauses) ... another variable in this is that the employee was compensated for signing the non-compete clause ... he probably let his own greed get the better of him, he should have objected to the NC clause before he left and refused the additional compensation they were granting him because of it ... trying to have your cake and eat it too doesn't usually work out too well ... this should be very interesting when it goes to trial since it appears the employee lied about why he was leaving (always a tricky circumstance)
 
Actually case law in Washington state has a high success rate for favoring the company when a non-compete exists.

Several factors come into play, including reasonableness, but prior court cases DO favor the company at least in WA state.
 
IhSYJOU
 
I'm sure if it was NewEgg suing an ex employee for violating a NCA, there wouldn't be so much acceptance of it.
 
ryamkajr said:
Actually case law in Washington state has a high success rate for favoring the company when a non-compete exists.

Several factors come into play, including reasonableness, but prior court cases DO favor the company at least in WA state.
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Article also mentions that a previous case in 2012 where Amazon sued and the ex-employee went to Google, the judge rejected Amazon's attempts and just forbade the guy from contacting Amazon's customers for 9 months:
http://www.geekwire.com/2012/judge-...sales-chief-work-google-minimal-restrictions/
 
LeninGHOLA said:
Not legally enforceable.
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Doesn't mater if it's legal or not, it can still stop you from getting a job or end up getting you fired because the company doesn't want to deal with it.

I had something similar cost me a job one time. I applied for an IT job at a company that was a customer of where I was currently working. There was a clause in sales contracts that the customer would not hire any of the companies employees. Even though the customer's legal department said it wasn't legal enforceable, they didn't want the hassle.

Of course, after that I doubled my efforts to find another job, so they lost me as an employee the following year anyways.
 
MoFoQ said:
Article also mentions that a previous case in 2012 where Amazon sued and the ex-employee went to Google, the judge rejected Amazon's attempts and just forbade the guy from contacting Amazon's customers for 9 months:
http://www.geekwire.com/2012/judge-...sales-chief-work-google-minimal-restrictions/
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This one might introduce some interesting new elements though ... the employee was given special compensation for the NC clause (he probably should be required to return this money as he did not meet the contractual requirements the money was to support) ... the employee has confidential information concerning a market (cloud services) where Amazon and Google are in direct competition ... depending on whether Google is the dominant player here (or Amazon) there could be anti-competitive elements at play that require monetary compensation (or market restrictions) ... it will certainly be interesting to see how this plays out ... it is certainly not as black and white as some of the traditional NC lawsuits :cool:
 
This is why the Facebook CEO (and most other large IT firms) is pushing for immigration reform; not for cheap yard work, but for more H-1B visas. This way they can get cheaper labor what can leave under threat of deportation.
 
Racheakt said:
This is why the Facebook CEO (and most other large IT firms) is pushing for immigration reform; not for cheap yard work, but for more H-1B visas. This way they can get cheaper labor what can leave under threat of deportation.
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Er Can't leave.... proofread fail.
 
Non-compete in tech is a bit of a white elephant, especially when tech firms seem to view all other tech firms as competition on one level or another. Non compete from any company is almost guaranteed to mean "you never get to work for Google" since their business is so varied. People who left Google under such an agreement would have to find a job in professional lint management or perhaps as a lumberjack to avoid conflicting with one of Googles tendrils. They key would be whether it restricts you from working for companies that may compete with your last company entirely, or merely prevent you from working in a division of that company that is competitive.

They've become increasingly difficult to enforce in a world of mega-corporations with varied business models, many of those corporations consider their "non-compete" clause to mean "you can't work anywhere, ever" for as long as the agreement lasts. That's why courts all over the world are using these agreements as toilet paper, they tend to start to tread on people's fundamental rights as citizens of a great many countries.
 
Twisted Kidney said:
Non-compete in tech is a bit of a white elephant, especially when tech firms seem to view all other tech firms as competition on one level or another. Non compete from any company is almost guaranteed to mean "you never get to work for Google" since their business is so varied. People who left Google under such an agreement would have to find a job in professional lint management or perhaps as a lumberjack to avoid conflicting with one of Googles tendrils. They key would be whether it restricts you from working for companies that may compete with your last company entirely, or merely prevent you from working in a division of that company that is competitive.

They've become increasingly difficult to enforce in a world of mega-corporations with varied business models, many of those corporations consider their "non-compete" clause to mean "you can't work anywhere, ever" for as long as the agreement lasts. That's why courts all over the world are using these agreements as toilet paper, they tend to start to tread on people's fundamental rights as citizens of a great many countries.
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I would agree if you look at NC clauses generically that is probably true. However, there are a number of factors in this particular case that raise red flags:

- The employee received special monetary compensation for his non-compete clause to diminish the negative effects it might have had on him (he is not offering to return this compensation according to the court filing)
- The employee signed the non-compete clause while still working in his job and with access to confidential company information (including the pricing and service levels of the Amazon cloud services). He made no complaints or modifications to the NC clause before signing it.
- The employee is actually doing exactly the same job for Google that he was doing for Amazon but did not tell Amazon this before leaving (it is very possible he did this to insure his access to the confidential information at Amazon would not be impeded before his departure)

As I said earlier, this case may very well hinge on who has the dominant position in this market ... if Google is the dominant player then allowing the employee to use the confidential information would be anti-competitive and designed to reduce competition in the sector by diminishing their competitor (Amazon) ... if Amazon is the the dominant player then restricting the use of the information could also be deemed anti-competitive ... the employee seems a little sleezy to me and hopefully he will be forced to return the special compensation he received for a contract he never actually followed, regardless of whether there are other monetary damages or market injunctions levied
 
MetalX said:
IhSYJOU.jpg
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There it is.

ZOLTAN!

When you sign a non-compete agreement, it's not a secret. It's not a simple form that is just pushed in your face when you're hired. It's explained, and you know what you're signing. I've signed them, and they are pretty clear on what you can't do and the time limits....
 
Some depends on whether you are let go or left. If you are let go then they cannot prevent you from finding new work, even with a competitor. Often a competitor is the only way one can find comparable work.

In any case, non-compete should be illegal on the federal level rather than selectively neutered on a state by state basis.
 
I couldn't find anywhere in the article where it stated where the employee actually worked. CA or WA...

If he works in WA, he better move his ass to CA ASAP and cross his fingers :)

If you work in CA feel free to sign the ever-living shit out of a NCA if it will get you a higher salary. There are in no way enforceable here. I think companies still have them sign them because they are banking on the fact that the employee might not know they are not legally binding. Combat deceit with deceit, pretend you don't know it isn't enforceable, and take that next job when the opportunity comes up.
 
DocFaustus said:
I couldn't find anywhere in the article where it stated where the employee actually worked. CA or WA...

If he works in WA, he better move his ass to CA ASAP and cross his fingers :)

If you work in CA feel free to sign the ever-living shit out of a NCA if it will get you a higher salary. There are in no way enforceable here. I think companies still have them sign them because they are banking on the fact that the employee might not know they are not legally binding. Combat deceit with deceit, pretend you don't know it isn't enforceable, and take that next job when the opportunity comes up.
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It is in the court documents in the article ... the breach of contract certainly occurred in Washington so I think the jurisdiction will stand ... also, since he received special monetary compensation as part of his NC contract there is a valid claim here on the money he was paid ... he violated the terms of the contract so he should return the special monetary supplement he received ... also, there could be actual anti-trust issues here since he had access to confidential information that would affect Google's ability to compete against Amazon (or damage Amazon's ability to compete against Google) ;)
 
kbrickley said:
It is in the court documents in the article ... the breach of contract certainly occurred in Washington so I think the jurisdiction will stand ... also, since he received special monetary compensation as part of his NC contract there is a valid claim here on the money he was paid ... he violated the terms of the contract so he should return the special monetary supplement he received ... also, there could be actual anti-trust issues here since he had access to confidential information that would affect Google's ability to compete against Amazon (or damage Amazon's ability to compete against Google) ;)
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Thanks for outlining the proper information required. If he was properly compensated for his non compete and it was outlined in his contract he's pretty much toast. For what he probably was making and the level he was at he really should have chatted with legal counsel before taking the offer.

The knowledge in his head? That's his. As long as he doesn't transfer any physical materials from amazon to google they can't touch him for that.
 
bnolsen said:
The knowledge in his head? That's his. As long as he doesn't transfer any physical materials from amazon to google they can't touch him for that.
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The knowledge in his head (in this case) is who the Amazon customers are, how much they pay for their services, and what services they are purchasing ... that is why Amazon is suing for injunctive relief and why he was so valuable for Google to hire :cool:
 
I've signed a NCA everywhere I've worked. In most cases it would depend on what knowledge the employee had. Not all employees have information that could cause an issue if they left.

I'd prefer if it were optional to sign them but it's either sign or don't get the job.

My current job has a ridiculous clause. Can't work for a competitor or a client for something like 5 years if they're within 50 miles.
 
kbrickley said:
They aren't asking him to do that
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Actually they are indeed wanting him out of work for nearly 2 yr if you read the article's 2nd and 3rd paragraphs.

kbrickley said:
they are only asking him to abstain from helping Google hire other Amazon employees or for him to approach Amazon customers or strategic partners for 6 months ... the last person they sued over this same thing was required to avoid Amazon customers for 9 months by the judge
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That is the compromise the judge worked out the last time Amazon sued over similar circumstances, its not what Amazon wanted. Amazon wanted that guy fired pronto + possible damages. You gotta re-read the article carefully. Or better yet just google the court's documents.

2nd and 3rd paragraphs of article said:
Amazon alleges the employee's new job violates his noncompete clause, which, in Amazon's view, should have prevented the employee from working for a competitor for 18 months after leaving Amazon.

As Bishop points out, Amazon filed a similar legal action in 2012. That's when it sued a former Amazon Web Services vice president, Daniel Powers, who also left for Google. A judge ruled that Powers was allowed to work for Google, though the court forbade him from approaching Amazon customers for nine months.
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kbrickley said:
seems like a reasonable request by Amazon so I give them a fighting chance
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Non-competes are never a reasonable request and are always awful since they stifle innovation and growth so even if Amazon was following the letter of the law here and was legally in the right its unreasonable to give Amazon a reasonable chance.
 
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