Prior Client Relationship Leveraged in Post-Departure Competition State
Class
340ad6e9
http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#PriorClientRelationshipLeveragedinPost-DepartureCompetitionState
Definition
State in which one or more departing engineers, having formed a competing firm, are soliciting former clients with whom they had direct personal professional relationships during their prior employment — leveraging those personal relationships as a competitive advantage. This state raises ethical questions about whether the personal relationship was developed in the course of employment (and thus belongs to the employer) or is a legitimate personal professional connection that the engineer may carry into independent practice, and whether using such relationships to solicit business constitutes improper use of employer-developed goodwill.
Properties
Subclass of
Definition
State in which one or more departing engineers, having formed a competing firm, are soliciting former clients with whom they had direct personal professional relationships during their prior employment — leveraging those personal relationships as a competitive advantage. This state raises ethical questions about whether the personal relationship was developed in the course of employment (and thus belongs to the employer) or is a legitimate personal professional connection that the engineer may carry into independent practice, and whether using such relationships to solicit business constitutes improper use of employer-developed goodwill.
Source Evidence
Source Text
In some instances one or more of the four engineers had been involved with the former clients of Engineer A while in his employ
TTL
@prefix rdf: <http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#> .
@prefix rdfs: <http://www.w3.org/2000/01/rdf-schema#> .
@prefix owl: <http://www.w3.org/2002/07/owl#> .
@prefix proethica_intermediate_extended: <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate-extended> .
<http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#PriorClientRelationshipLeveragedinPost-DepartureCompetitionState> a owl:Class ;
rdfs:label "Prior Client Relationship Leveraged in Post-Departure Competition State" ;
rdfs:comment "State in which one or more departing engineers, having formed a competing firm, are soliciting former clients with whom they had direct personal professional relationships during their prior employment — leveraging those personal relationships as a competitive advantage. This state raises ethical questions about whether the personal relationship was developed in the course of employment (and thus belongs to the employer) or is a legitimate personal professional connection that the engineer may carry into independent practice, and whether using such relationships to solicit business constitutes improper use of employer-developed goodwill." ;
rdfs:subClassOf <http://proethica.org/ontology/core#State> .
Metadata
Ontology
Type
Class
Content Hash
340ad6e9e34faa6d...Last Updated
2026-03-12 16:49
Extraction Provenance
Discovered in Case
168
Discovered In Pass
1
Discovered In Section
facts
First Discovered At
2026-03-02T02:37:30.453400+00:00
First Discovered In Case
168
Generated
2026-03-02T02:37:30.453400+00:00
Was Attributed To
Case 168 Extraction