Apple: Apple reportedly poached employees from A123 Systems to work on battery tech, now faces unfair competition lawsuit

Apple reportedly poached employees from A123 Systems to work on battery tech, now faces unfair competition lawsuit


Apple has poached five key engineers from A123 Systems to work in a new battery division at the Cupertino technology company, with some hires possibly going as far back as June, a new report claims. The battery maker claims that these hires violated agreements it had in place to prevent them from joining competing companies.
The employees the report refers to are Don Dafoe, Michael Erickson, Indrajeet Thorat, Mujeeb Ijaz, and Depeng Wang. Three of these workersâ€"Erickson, Thorat, and Wangâ€"were PhD project heads working on new battery technology. Ijaz headed up the System Venture Technologies Division, which oversaw work by all four of the others.

After these employees left the company, A123 has been unable to find leaders qualified to take over for them and their respective projects are essentially dead in the water. The company says it found emails on work computers between its former engineers and Apple’s talent acquisition staff, leading to the conclusion that the workers had been poached.
A123 Systems has filed a lawsuit against Apple and its former employees, saying that its former engineers breached their non-compete contracts, while claiming Apple had engaged in “unfair competition,” among other charges.
As noted in the image above (taken from the company’s home page), A123 Systems creates “advanced energy solutions” tailored toward, among other things, vehicles. It’s certainly an interesting development, given recent rumors that Apple is developing a car, and has poached Tesla employees to help with the project.

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1. James Wesolowski (@Colibrinyc) says: How is this Apple’s fault? Didn’t they just pay a settlement because of non-compete agreements?
   
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   • bdkennedy11 says: Apple is supposed to ask whether or not those people had a no-compete clause in their contract. So unless those people lied, it’s Apple’s fault.
     
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     • Harvey Lubin (@NorthSaanichBC) says: Since the courts have made no-poaching agreements illegal, A123 Systems doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on.
       
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     • Tim Jr. says: Courts rarely uphold non-compete contracts.. Even then, it’s almost always when the individual goes to a DIRECT competitor..
       Since Apple is not ‘currently’ in automotive battery / energy market.. and can easily claim it’s for current or future phones, computers or tablets… It’s very unlikely A123 Systems will win this case.
       
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2. Leonson Stapleton says: “joining competing companies” â€" apple hasn’t entered into that industry yet so technically they aren’t competing.
   
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3. moofer1972 says: Um, people can work wherever they want.
   
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   • chasinvictoria says: Um, no they can’t if they signed a non-compete agreement (usually covers a relatively short period of time, say a year) with their former employer.
     
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     • Tim Jr. says: Apple isn’t in direct competition.. they don’t make cars, batteries or other energy products that sell to other manufacturers..
       Non-competes are almost always limited to DIRECT competition.. so unless 123A can prove Apple is a direct competitor to their market (car energy products sold to car manufacturers) … they have very, very little chance of enforcing a non-compete..
       The word “non-compete” is in-it-self descriptive of the nature of the contract.. meaning DIRECT market competition must be proven to uphold the contract.. lol
       Apple would have to be a company that directly creates and sells car energy generation products.. they DONT.
       
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4. chasinvictoria says: If the employees violated their non-compete agreements (will be interesting to see if a judge thinks Apple is a direct competitor to A123), then that’s on the employees, but has nothing to do with Apple as far as I can see. There may be more to it of course, but based on the scant info in the article that’s the only conclusion I can draw.
   
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