DP3

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

DP3

Should Engineer A solicit Clover City's work after the one-year moratorium by leveraging the specific client relationships and project knowledge developed during his ABC employment, or must he limit his solicitation to his general professional competence without exploiting proprietary ABC work product or client-specific intelligence?

After establishing his independent firm and voluntarily refraining from soliciting ABC's clients for approximately one year, Engineer A begins soliciting work from ABC's former clients including Clover City. No non-compete agreement exists. The voluntary moratorium is treated by the Board as an ethically sufficient cooling-off period. However, Engineer A's competitive advantage with Clover City derives substantially from knowledge, relationships, and work product — including the elevated storage tank funding analysis — developed exclusively during his ABC employment, and Clover City had already signaled its preference for Engineer A before the moratorium began.

Solicit Clover City's work after the moratorium by representing general professional experience in water treatment and municipal infrastructure, accurately attributing prior project experience to work performed while employed at ABC, without deploying client-specific intelligence, budget data, or proprietary report content as competitive differentiators.

Solicit Clover City's work by drawing on the full depth of knowledge — including infrastructure priorities, budget constraints, internal decision-making processes, and key personnel relationships — developed during the ABC engagement, treating this knowledge as general professional experience freely portable upon departure.

Voluntarily extend the non-solicitation period beyond one year with respect to Clover City specifically — given that the city's preference for Engineer A was established before the moratorium began — until ABC has had a genuine opportunity to compete for the city's work on equal informational footing.

Engineer A