by bemaha » Tue Oct 23, 2018 2:30 pm
It would be interesting to know what they mean by "trade secrets" and how much of it is actually a "secret", regardless of the steps they took to make it confidential. It seems like in the pedal industry, everything is based on standard and well-known circuits, and to the extent their trade secrets are embodied in their sales practices, advertising schemes, etc., I highly doubt they could be considered secrets per se. Taking a publicly known concept, describing it in a document, and then stamping the document with the word "confidential" does not make the concept a secret. If anything, perhaps there was a breach in the employment agreement, which might have included a non-compete clause or something to that effect, but even then such clauses are hard to enforce. It sounds to me like they were just not going to listen to the new owner, had no respect for her and thought she had no idea what she was doing. Maybe so, but she inherited the company and became the rightful owner. There was probably a much more reasonable way of dealing with the issue - like maybe just approaching her with a reasonable buy-out offer instead of doing all this sneaking around. Just my take on it without knowing all the facts, of course.