Ask HN: Can I be sued for recruiting former coworkers to a new company?

2 points·aosmith··3 comments

I was just an employee at both companies that would be relevant. Any thoughts / ideas here? These people are my friends and I just want to help them.

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IANAL. This should depend on the contract you had with your ex-companies. My previous big company had a contract that stated that more than two of us could not leave the same time and work at the any same company for a period of 6-12 months.

I think if you and your friends worked together, but now, some amount of time has passed then, it should be fair enough.

You can be sued for pretty much _anything_.

Whether anybody is a) going to bother, and b) going to prevail - those are the important questions. (And note, even if the chances of b are vanishingly small, you most likely don't want a to happen if "anybody" includes large well funded organisations with practically unlimited legal budgets... I would not poach ex cow orkers from say, picking a random example, Oracle - unless it was _very_ clear I was permitted to do so.)

Companies should not be chilled from hiring their competitor’s best talent. They can ultimately avoid the risk of litigation by making it clear that those hired cannot bring along technology or data which were obtained or learned from their previous employer. >

*Cautionary note, this won't actually stop a litigious former employer or jackass lawyer from filing a lawsuit. > https://hbr.org/2017/06/the-uber-waymo-lawsuit-it-should-be-...

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