Employment And Conflicts Of Interest?

An Anonymous Coward in a difficult position asks: "I recently have been offered a position / job with a rather large company. The position is also rather high profile. The opportunity is great except for one thing. The person trying to hire me is currently a client of my current employer. The opportunity was presented to me because my current employer has pretty much scoffed at the offers made by this client and they do not take this client seriously. The client then came to me and asked for my help. This help is slowly developing into the above mentioned opportunity. What if any are the legal implications of all of this?"

I hate to sound snarky, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

In most of the corporate environments where I've worked, the HR people were pretty weasely. Many of the women in HR seemed to have been former cheerleaders who enjoyed gossipy office politics. ("I can't tell you any *real* details, but I know about a person over in ...") I've seen more than a few moving-on situations that became tense and ugly primarily because of the over-involvement of an HR person who stirred things up in the stated belief that they were "being loyal to the company".

Prehaps my experiences are outside the norm, but I tend to get pre-emptively cautious when it comes to dealing with HR people on end-of-employment issues. Actually, though, the personnel folks at my current situation, in a non-profit/academia environment, are pretty good. It's the corporate ones that I've learned to not trust.

Did you sign anything?

[xrayspx]

At my former employer (web-site dev. company), I had to sign an NDA and Non-Compete agreement. I basically signed a paper to the effect that I would never work for any of our clients in any capacity.

This doesn't hold a LOT of water though. This would mean that I can't work for quite a few large computer corps (HP for one), at all, ever. Here in the Live Free or Die state, non-competes don't hold much weight, and if I went to work for a former client now, about a year later, there would be plenty of room for arguement.

Most of the time, these aren't THAT legally binding, and you can get around them. If it's worth it for the former client to pay your legal fees when/if your employer sues you, then I'd say go for it. It sounds like your employer doesn't treat these clients right anyway, and they need the help, someone should provide it.

probably not a damn thing

[StandardDeviant]

If you live in an "at will" employment state (most in the US are; naturally if you live somewhere else disregard this), you can give your employer the finger right now with no reasons needed and walk. Do you think they'd give you two weeks notice if you were about to be fired or laid off?

WRT the conflict of interest angle, they have no need and no right to know where you're moving onto. If they do find out where you went to, they can't prove that anything you did at employer A's workplace led to you getting employed by company B. (I mean really prove it, like to the standards of evidence in a court of law.) If you're really worried about this talk to the corporate attorney of company B or a private attorney.

If your present employer is laughing off business, that's a really good sign that they are idiots or assholes or both, hoc ergo an even better sign that it's time to move on.

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"Overrated" is "overfuckingused".

Check your contract.

[cmowire]

Check your employment contract VERY CAREFULLY. Sometimes they have some explicit provisions against what you are doing.

but

[Anonymous Coward]

most of the time employment IS a conflict of interest...

Been there done that

[Robert S Gormley]

It shouldn't be an issue, I think, unless you're deceitful to either employer. I moved from a law firm where I was involved in the deployment of a product in beta (web based doc. management) to the development firm, who wanted someone experienced in using it (unsurprisingly uncommon) to write the documentation, from the POV of where the client would be.

They *did* shield me from direct contact with my previous employer, but more as a professional courtesy, not as an ethical/moral consideration - my manager at the law firm and others there knew perfectly well I was at the development house, and they didn't annoy or hassle me.

Be upfront. Be honest. Then no-one can complain that they were in the dark.

Check first...

[CrayDrygu]

Your employer may or may not have penalties for you, but they also may have penalties for the company doing the hiring. I recently spoke with someone from a company offering, basically, back-up tech support for when you can't be there for your users (vacations and such) or when you just need some extra hands. There was a large fine ($75k, I think) if you hire away one of their experts. However, the lady did say that a few companies have thought the fine was worth it and hired them anyway.

You may want to have the company looking to hire you read through their contract with your current employer for any clauses like that.

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Risky....

[coyote-san]

This is fairly risky. You didn't specify the type of work you do, but the employment law (and case law) was all written around situations like inside sales agents moving to a competitor and taking clients, technical recruiters moving to a competitor and taking clients, etc. If your services are "sold" to the clients in any way, you might be covered by the state's general "Faithfulness and Fidelity of Employees" laws (or whatever it's called in your state) - checking your employment contract (if any) and employee handbook (if any) may not be enough.

The general rule is that former employees should not contact former clients for N months (or years), although it is somewhat more acceptable if the clients contact them. But if you've been discussing taking a job with them, a claim that you quit to work on your tan and this client tracked you down and offered a job won't hold much water in court.

However, from what you said it's possible that your current employer sees this client as a pest and won't care if take them away. But they might protest because they want you to stay for other clients. They might not be able to force you continue working for them, but they might be able to prevent you from working for their former client.

This is one case where you really should consult a local lawyer. Second best would probably be asking to speak to your company's HR person "in confidence" and explaining the situation - do NOT say you're definitely leaving, but essentially give them a "right of first refusal." They can still be assholes, but you'll be in a better position if the companies start fighting. And you might get lucky - the HR person may be competent and offer to investigate how your current employer will respond without identifying you specifically.