Category Archives: Fiduciary Duty

Recent Judgment in Massachusetts Case Shows that Cases Involving Faithless Employees Sometimes Go to Trial and Result in Big Money Verdicts

As reported by Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly last week (subscription required), late last year a Middlesex County jury found a defendant company liable for over $1.3 million in damages to the plaintiff competing company in a case involving the plaintiff’s former employee.  The plaintiff, an energy broker, alleged that its former employee, while working for the plaintiff, secretly affiliated with the competing company, another energy broker, to divert the plaintiff’s customers and one of its energy programs to the defendant company. … More

Defense that Defendant Employee was “Set Up” Does Not Hold Up in Contempt Case

In a case that was decided last year but that last week received attention from Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly, Judge Renee Dupuis of the Norfolk County Superior Court ruled that a defendant employee violated a preliminary injunction by hatching a plan either to steal clients from his former employer or to destroy his former employer’s business.

In Angstrom Advanced, Inc. v. Mziguir, the employer,… More

New Case Highlights Split of Authority Interpreting the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act

Below is a cross-post with the Security, Privacy and the Law blog.

Employers increasingly are suing former employees who have left to join or form competing companies using the civil remedies available under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”), 18 U.S.C. § 1030. They use the CFAA to prevent their former employees from using sensitive information obtained from the former employer’s computer system. The scope of the CFAA,… More

Recent Decision Highlights Risks of the “No-Noncompete” Situation

While some in the business community continue to focus on whether the ability to enforce noncompetes in Massachusetts places the state at a competitive disadvantage vis-à-vis Silicon Valley, a recent decision from the Massachusetts Superior Court’s Business Litigation Session — Network Systems Architects Corp. v. Dimitruk — highlights the difficulties departing employees and their future employers can face even in the absence of a contract restricting post-employment activities. … More