Employee fired, prosecuted for taking former employer’s confidential information with him

An executive asks and is given for confidential sales information, marked as “confidential” and with a request not to distribute it.

Not long afterwards, the executive quits and takes a similar position with a competitor of his former employer.

Shortly after that, on his own initiative, he gives the confidential information to his new employer.

That gets him fired by his new company — and prosecuted for criminal theft of trade secrets by the U.S. Attorney’s office.

In a nutshell, that’s what allegedly happened with Atul Malhotra, who has been indicted for giving IBM confidential information to HP. See the write-up in Wired magazine and the charging document filed in court.

See also: (list is automatically generated)

• Employee noncompetition clause invalidated because linked to stock-option grant, not to confidential information
• Commission structure in employment agreement results in $4.1 billion judgment for fired employee
• Think twice before suing a departed employee for trade-secret misappropriation in California, or risk a big attorneys’ fees award
• Protecting confidential information — three rules: Lock it up; label it; ‘safe sex’
• Note-taking in meetings and phone calls: Three easy habits your lawyer will love you for

Tagged as: Confidential information, Criminal, HP, IBM, Intellectual property, Trade secrets