According to the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court, in recent years, there has been a significant increase in labor dispute cases involving corporate executives and high-tech talents. Zhu, a resident of Nanjing, is a company executive with a monthly salary of more than 50,000 yuan, who should be honest and dedicated to fulfilling non-compete and confidentiality obligations, but he pried away the company's resources for his own benefit. As a result, the company sued him and three other executives in court, claiming 14 million yuan.
In July 2018, Mr. Zhu served as the vice president of a technology company in Beijing, responsible for the business of Nanjing branch.
However, the Beijing company found through the remote work platform that Zhu had been entrapping three other senior executives of the branch since November 2020, priing away the company's core resources and seeking benefits for another company he actually controlled that operated a similar business.
Ben Xiaoqing, Vice President of the Expedited Division of the Nanjing Gulou District People's Court:
It is equivalent to him getting the company's business into a company that they set up outside, and even telling customers that we are a subsidiary of this company, using the form of stealing beams and changing pillars.
The Labor Contract Law of the People's Republic of China clearly stipulates that for employees who are obliged to maintain confidentiality, the employer may stipulate a non-compete clause with the employee in the employment contract or confidentiality agreement. If the employee violates the non-compete agreement, he shall pay liquidated damages to the employer in accordance with the agreement.
In this case, Zhu and four other executives violated the "Non-compete and Confidentiality Agreement" signed with the company, and the circumstances were even worse without leaving the company.
Ben Xiaoqing, Vice President of the Expedited Division of the Nanjing Gulou District People's Court:
You take the high salary given to you by this company, and you can't use the company's resources to create benefits for your own external companies, which is definitely not allowed by law.
The Nanjing Gulou District People's Court comprehensively considered the remuneration level, degree of fault, and profit of the four executives, and ruled that the compensation amount for the four executives for violating the non-compete obligation was 2.4 million yuan. The Nanjing Intermediate People's Court rejected the appeal and upheld the original judgment.
Ben Xiaoqing, Vice President of the Expedited Division of the Nanjing Gulou District People's Court:
Workers provide labor for this company, first of all, they must have a duty of loyalty, honesty, credit, and dedication, which are the basic norms that workers should abide by during their employment.
Source: Jiangsu News