Image via Complex Original
By now, most sneakerheads have probably heard of the mammoth lawsuit filed by Nike against three of its former high-profile designers and the alleged misdeeds that came to light. While the proceedings are ongoing and not much new information has surfaced since, we reached out to our in-house legal counsel to get a lawyer's perspective on the case, and she gave us some useful points to be gleaned from Nike’s complaint. To be clear, this should in no way be construed as actual legal advice, but rather some general observations from someone in the legal field. With that in mind, here are Four Lessons to Be Learned from Nike's Lawsuit Against Its Formers Designers.
Don't use company property to access your personal email account.
Most people wouldn't think twice about checking their personal email accounts on their work laptops or computers. If you're not doing anything wrong and don’t have any bad intentions, then you probably have little to worry about. On the other hand, if you think just because you're using your personal email that you're totally safe from prying eyes, think again.
That's because many companies have policies that explicitly allow them to monitor all communications on company property, and many courts have determined that there should be no expectation of privacy for anything done on this property. Nike’s complaint alleged that Denis Dekovic advised both Mark Miner and Marc Dolce to use their personal email addresses for further communications. It would appear that Nike discovered this directly from one or more company laptops used by the defendants.
Some things should not be discussed in writing, which includes text messaging.
While it may seem like common sense to avoid discussing sensitive issues via email where all types of digital snooping can occur, this also applies to text messaging. Many of the communications between the defendants are alleged to have occurred by text messaging, which Nike somehow discovered. This also relates to using company property, where there's no right to privacy, to send and receive communications. Simply put, if you don’t feel comfortable discussing something by email, you probably should not use text messaging, either.
Erasing devices and deleting files doesn't mean it's gone permanently.
Nike's complaint alleged that the defendants tried to cover up their misdeeds and communications by deleting text messages, resetting their company issued cell phones, and wiping their Nike-issued laptop hard drives. However, wiping your phone or computer hard drive isn't as simple as you may think. In our digital age, nothing is ever really deleted permanently.
Simply using your phone's erase feature or reformatting a hard drive won't actually clear the entire device's memory. Have you ever lost or deleted an important file by accident and desperately needed to get it back? Well, there are professional data recovery experts and services that specialize in doing just that. Deleting something from your device doesn't mean it's gone forever. It just means you need to know where to look.
Your company makes you sign non-compete and non-solicitation agreements for a reason. Understand what you are signing.
Most companies today require prospective employees to sign some sort of non-compete and non-solicitation agreement, and for good reason. The purpose of a non-compete is to make sure employees don’t disclose trade secrets to a competitor, which is what Nike alleged the defendants did in this case.
A non-solicitation agreement means that an employee agrees not to ask others within the company to leave when and if that employee moves on from the company. Although we’re not in a position to evaluate the merits of those claims, Nike alleged that all three defendants violated their non-compete and non-solicitation agreements. Make sure you fully understand yours before you sign on the dotted line, and if you don't, get someone qualified to help you look it over.