Imagine you are the general counsel or other senior officer of a company sitting in your office on a Friday afternoon, and your phone rings. One of your firm’s largest revenue producers is leaving the company for a competitor. Disappointed, you realize the business will have to move forward without him. Minutes later, you receive a barrage of additional phone calls, emails and facsimiles announcing that swarms of employees are resigning or intend to leave the company at the end of their contract terms. You soon learn they are all leaving to work for the same competitor. Your firm is under attack. It is the target of an employee raid.
Courts recognize an employee’s freedom to make his or her own employment decisions, and generally, one or two employees departing for a competitor does not cause a stir. However, the lift-out of an entire team (or teams) of employees may be indicative of unfair or improper conduct. Such conduct not only threatens the target company’s business, but often violates the law. This article outlines the legal remedies that may be available to companies in the face of an employee raid.
