Honesty in Professional Representations Violated By Engineer A Toward Firm X
P · Principle
Individual
http://proethica.org/ontology/case/127#Honesty_in_Professional_Representations_Violated_By_Engineer_A_Toward_Firm_X
Properties
Instance of
HonestyinProfessionalRepresentations
http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#HonestyinProfessionalRepresentations
Applied to
Engineer A Departing Engineer Starting Competing Firm
Firm X Incumbent Engineering Firm
Balancing with
Free and Open Competition as Engineering Ethics Boundary Condition
Concrete expression
Engineer A made a representation to Firm X that he would not be competing with Firm X, which was either false at the time of making or became false almost immediately upon departure, as he began direct competitive conduct within one month
Confidence
0.86
Importance
high
Interpretation
The representation of non-competition was a professional representation about Engineer A's future conduct; its almost immediate falsification by Engineer A's actual conduct raises questions about whether the representation was honest when made
Invoked by
Engineer B Incumbent Firm Principal Discovering Competitor Misconduct
Tension resolution
Honesty in professional representations applies to representations about one's own future competitive conduct, not only to representations about qualifications; the rapid departure from the stated intent suggests the representation was not made in good faith
Source Evidence
Source text
Engineer A had represented that he was going to start his own one-person consulting firm, Firm Y, and that he would not be in the position of competing with Firm X.
Text references
A month after Engineer A departs from Firm X, Engineer B, a principal in Firm X learns that Engineer A has contacted one of Firm X's employees, Engineer C, and offered her a position with Firm Y.
Engineer A had represented that he was going to start his own one-person consulting firm, Firm Y, and that he would not be in the position of competing with Firm X.
TTL
@prefix case127: <http://proethica.org/ontology/case/127#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix proeth: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#> .
@prefix prov: <http://www.w3.org/ns/prov#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix xsd: <http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#> .
case127:Honesty_in_Professional_Representations_Violated_By_Engineer_A_Toward_Firm_X a proeth:HonestyinProfessionalRepresentations,
owl:NamedIndividual ;
rdfs:label "Honesty in Professional Representations Violated By Engineer A Toward Firm X" ;
proeth:appliedto "Engineer A Departing Engineer Starting Competing Firm",
"Firm X Incumbent Engineering Firm" ;
proeth:balancingwith "Free and Open Competition as Engineering Ethics Boundary Condition" ;
proeth:conceptCategory "Principle" ;
proeth:concreteexpression "Engineer A made a representation to Firm X that he would not be competing with Firm X, which was either false at the time of making or became false almost immediately upon departure, as he began direct competitive conduct within one month" ;
proeth:confidence "0.86" ;
proeth:discoveredincase "127" ;
proeth:discoveredinpass "2" ;
proeth:discoveredinsection "facts" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredat "2026-03-01T03:14:48.554502+00:00" ;
proeth:firstdiscoveredincase "127" ;
proeth:generatedattime "2026-03-01T03:14:48.554502+00:00" ;
proeth:importance "high" ;
proeth:interpretation "The representation of non-competition was a professional representation about Engineer A's future conduct; its almost immediate falsification by Engineer A's actual conduct raises questions about whether the representation was honest when made" ;
proeth:invokedby "Engineer B Incumbent Firm Principal Discovering Competitor Misconduct" ;
proeth:principleclass "Honesty in Professional Representations" ;
proeth:sourcetext "Engineer A had represented that he was going to start his own one-person consulting firm, Firm Y, and that he would not be in the position of competing with Firm X." ;
proeth:tensionresolution "Honesty in professional representations applies to representations about one's own future competitive conduct, not only to representations about qualifications; the rapid departure from the stated intent suggests the representation was not made in good faith" ;
proeth:textreferences "A month after Engineer A departs from Firm X, Engineer B, a principal in Firm X learns that Engineer A has contacted one of Firm X's employees, Engineer C, and offered her a position with Firm Y.",
"Engineer A had represented that he was going to start his own one-person consulting firm, Firm Y, and that he would not be in the position of competing with Firm X." ;
proeth:wasattributedto "Case 127 Extraction" ;
prov:generatedAtTime "2026-03-01T03:44:36.618896"^^xsd:dateTime ;
prov:wasGeneratedBy "ProEthica Case 127 Extraction" .
Metadata
Extraction details
Discovered in case
127
Discovered in pass
2
Discovered in section
facts
First discovered
2026-03-01T03:14:48.554502+00:00
First case
127
Generated
2026-03-01T03:14:48.554502+00:00
Attributed to
Case 127 Extraction
Generated
2026-03-01T03:44:36.618896
Generated by
ProEthica Case 127 Extraction