DP4

DecisionPoint
http://proethica.org/ontology/cases#DecisionPoint

DP4

Should the four engineers be found to have violated their ethical obligations by internally discussing and planning post-departure client solicitation while still employed at Firm A, even though no overt promotional action or client contact occurred before their resignation?

While still employed at Firm A, the four engineers discussed and planned their post-departure strategy, including the possibility of soliciting former clients of Engineer A after leaving. No overt promotional action or client contact occurred before their simultaneous resignation. The question is whether this pre-departure internal planning — without external promotional action — violated the prohibition on promotional efforts or negotiations for work on behalf of a competing practice while still employed, or whether the prohibition's literal boundary protects purely deliberative internal discussion.

Conclude that the four engineers did not violate the Code because the pre-departure promotional prohibition applies only to actual external promotional efforts or negotiations with clients, and internal deliberative planning among prospective co-founders — without client contact — falls outside the prohibition's literal scope.

Conclude that the coordinated simultaneous resignation, planned in advance while the engineers still owed duties to Firm A, constituted a breach of the duty of loyalty that is ethically cognizable independently of any specific promotional act — because the intent to maximize competitive disruption was formed and executed during the employment relationship.

Conclude that pre-departure planning is permissible as a general matter but that the specific coordination of simultaneous departure timed to coincide with a critical operational period for Firm A — if established by evidence — would cross the line from permissible career planning into purposive disruption constituting a loyalty-based violation, and remand for factual development on the timing question.

Firm B Engineers (Four Departing Engineers)