Dispute Summary
Dispute Summary
In today’s business environment, disputes are inevitable. Disputes are handled through dialog, resulting in both parties being satisfied, but often disputes can become very serious, involving legal action. Disputes in a workplace may occur among any of the organization's stakeholders, e.g., between employee and employee, employee-supervisor, company-vendor, company-customer, and company-competitor. Most conflicts in workplace, particularly in team or group situations cause significant distress among the people involved. If such disputes remain unresolved for some time, they are likely to take a heavy toll of employee morale and result in personal, social and economic costs including costly litigation.
The dispute that I chose to write about was a dispute that occurred at my previous place of employment. This dispute was between an employee (former)-company and company-competitor. I was previously employed at a telecommunication company. The telecommunication firm that I worked for brought a suit against a former employee and the competitor, for whom the former employee had started working. The dispute was that the company believed that the former employee had violated a non-compete contract that she had signed when she became a business manager with the company. By signing this agreement the employee agreed that the company’s clients and confidential information pertaining to them comprised a substantial part of the goodwill of its business; protection of goodwill is of particular importance in such business; and she had no proprietary interest in the company’s business. The employee also promised to devote full time and best efforts to the company’s business and the related business interests of its corporate affiliates; acknowledged that, as part of her employment she would have access to and become acquainted with the company’s confidential information relating to the company’s present and future clients, companies from which our company obtained or would obtain quotes for purchasing the materials and its warranty details from the company. She acknowledged that she would be given access to the company’s confidential information only for the purpose of furthering its business interests and those of its affiliates. She promised that she would not, during the term of the agreement or for 24 months thereafter, either disclose the company’s confidential information to any person, firm, or corporation or use such confidential information for the purpose of inducing or attempting to induce any of the company’s clients to become a client of her or any person, firm, or corporation with which she became affiliated in any capacity. She also promised that she would not, during the term of the agreement or for 24 months thereafter, solicit or accept insurance agency or brokerage business from or perform related services for any of the company’s clients. This was an agreement that all business managers, technical managers, vice presidents, presidents, etc., had to sign upon acquiring these positions and the employee was very familiar with this contract.
