back to article Hortonworks takes ex-sales manager to court over non-compete allegations

Hadoop-slinger Hortonworks has sought a court order against former enterprise sales manager Ben Rudall that would permit it take forensic images of his personal phone and his cloud storage account. Rudall is currently UK sales director at cloudy data warehousing firm Snowflake Computing after leaving Hortonworks in August this …

  1. Snorlax Silver badge

    Standard Operating Procedure These Days...

    "The barrister alleged that this was a “different” account to one given previously, adding that Hortonworks claimed to have found porn on the salesman’s old laptop: “It’s difficult to imagine why there wasn’t removal of pornography from the computer.”

    This must be pretty standard stuff in the post-truth 'alternative facts' age.

    If you don't have anything concrete to take somebody down, just sling some unfounded ad hominem bullshit and hope it sticks.

    Hardly earth-shattering in any event - show me somebody who doesn't have traces of porn on their phone or laptop and I'll show you a liar.

    As for wanting to image his personal phone? What's that going to achieve? He could buy an Alcatel OneTouch in Tesco for 20 quid and hand that in.

    1. Lysenko

      Re: Standard Operating Procedure These Days...

      Hardly earth-shattering in any event - show me somebody who doesn't have traces of porn on their phone or laptop and I'll show you a liar.

      Not only non-Earth shattering, not even remotely relevant. Even if it were an established fact, it would be grounds for internal gross misconduct proceedings which, at most, could give them a defensible reason for summarily terminating his employment ....... oh.

      There's some subtext here. The case looks weak as hell in the first place and attempted smear tactics like this can only influence the Judge in one way - against the complainant.

  2. Paul Herber Silver badge

    Who?

    Who?

  3. Jeff 11
    Facepalm

    Funny, when VMWare sued them in 2013 the Hortonworks line was:

    "People have every right to freely pursue opportunities with any company they believe will advance their personal and professional objectives, and should not be limited in any way from doing so."

    https://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/02/15/vmware_legal_action_hortonworks/

  4. Adam 52 Silver badge

    "breaching various contractual non-compete clauses by: taking a job with Snowflake;"

    You can't restrict someone's right to earn a living, and Snowflake aren't exactly direct competitors to Horton works.

    " sending Linkedin contact requests to people at Barclays Bank;"

    Nothing wrong with that, unless he's contacting them using something private to his old employer.

    " and taking unnamed O2 employees to dinner."

    Nothing wrong with taking people to dinner. Unless it is a bribe.

    1. Snorlax Silver badge

      @Adam 52

      @Adam 52:"You can't restrict someone's right to earn a living, and Snowflake aren't exactly direct competitors to Horton works."

      Actually an employer can do exactly that, if the prospective employee agrees to it in his contract of employment.

      The restriction does need to be reasonable though, and courts will use the blue pencil doctrine to remove unfair/unreasonable terms from an employment contract.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: @Adam 52

        "Actually an employer can do exactly that, if the prospective employee agrees to it in his contract of employment."

        Maybe in the US, not in England.

  5. kernelpickle

    It's a sad state of affairs that we allow, disgusting behavior like this is allowed to continue, completely unchecked by the government!

    It's absolutely sickening, that we even allow a scenario where an innocent person like Hortonworks, would even be in a position to get abused by scumbags like this Ben Rudall! For God's sake, Hortonworks is ONLY 6 years old--doesn't anyone ever think of the children?!

    Clearly, we're not doing enough to protect the most vulnerable among us, from such rampant greed! Companies have tried forcing employees to sign employment agreements that contain non-solicit, non-compete, and mandatory arbitration agreements in the past--but it hasn't been enough on it's own. Even when you've thrown in right-to-work, and at-will employment laws, people still act like the company owes THEM something!

    The time has come to stop coddling these people, and it's time start getting rid of ridiculous laws that protect whistle blowers, or force corporations to pay for healthcare or taxes! #MAGA

  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Poor decision

    This is a low for Hortonworks. Essentially, clients or non clients of Hortonworks have the right to meet and or connect with On LinkedIn whomever they desire and not be dragged into what I can see petty internal politics. Seems as though the Hortonworks management team is executing poor judgement responding to employees leaving without the realisation that people move on. Do I want to do business with Hortonworks? Short answer is NO.

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