Former Employee Poaching Staff and Clients: How Can We Legally Respond?

Dear Seniors,

One of our senior staff has resigned and joined another company to form a similar kind of business setup. After joining our competitor, he is luring our other technical staff to join him. He is also approaching our clients/vendors to secure business prospects. Additionally, we have discovered that one of our technicians, without resigning from us, has been working with this particular person and passing some of our confidential information about our business to him for the past week. This technician was caught red-handed.

Is there any way we can take action against these two individuals? We are seeking valuable suggestions from seniors before we proceed with legal action.

Truly,
Asha

Dear Asha,

Legal action can be encouraged if the employee is passing confidential information about your company's business to another company without approval from higher authority. However, you must have concrete proof, which should be in written form or through data sharing via a CD or any relevant emails from the employee's personal or professional email account, etc., to make the violation visible.

A show-cause notice can be issued to employees, especially those who have not resigned or have not served the notice period as specified in the appointment letter.

However, we cannot support further legal action against an employee who is attempting to recruit your staff to the company where they are employed.

Thank you.