The “inevitable disclosure doctrine” allows a court to bar an ex-employee from working for a new employer even without a non-competition agreement. This injunction can issue even if the employee has expressly rejected any intention to use his prior employer’s trade secrets in the new job. Such good faith is deemed irrelevant if the employee cannot perform the new job without using his prior employer’s trade secrets.
The doctrine recently received some high-profile attention in California, where Hewlett-Packard sued Mark Hurd, its former CEO who had resigned in the midst of a sexual harassment investigation and discovery of inaccurate expense reports. The suit was filed a day after Hurd announced that he had joined Oracle as its “co-president.” HP asserted that Hurd would not be able to do his job at Oracle without using HP’s highly sensitive and confidential information.
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