Departing Engineer Forming Competing Firm and Soliciting Former Clients
Class
1fc8b446
http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#DepartingEngineerFormingCompetingFirmandSolicitingFormerClients
Definition
A licensed professional engineer who departs from an employer firm (typically following internal disagreement), co-founds a competing engineering firm, and promptly contacts the former employer's clients — including those with projects under active discussion — to solicit new business, bearing obligations to avoid supplanting the incumbent, to refrain from disparaging the former employer's competence, and to compete fairly without misuse of confidential client relationships developed during prior employment.
Properties
Subclass of
Definition
A licensed professional engineer who departs from an employer firm (typically following internal disagreement), co-founds a competing engineering firm, and promptly contacts the former employer's clients — including those with projects under active discussion — to solicit new business, bearing obligations to avoid supplanting the incumbent, to refrain from disparaging the former employer's competence, and to compete fairly without misuse of confidential client relationships developed during prior employment.
Scope Note
[proethica-intermediate-extended] A licensed professional engineer who leaves an employer firm, makes representations about future non-competition, and then establishes or joins a competing firm, bearing obligations of honesty in representations about competitive intent, avoidance of deceptive or disparaging competitive practices, and fair dealing with the former employer's clients and staff.
Source Evidence
Source Text
Four of the key engineering employees of a firm headed by Engineer A left the firm at the same time following disagreement on certain firm policies and promptly organized a new engineering firm, B
TTL
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@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#DepartingEngineerFormingCompetingFirmandSolicitingFormerClients> a owl:Class ;
rdfs:label "Departing Engineer Forming Competing Firm and Soliciting Former Clients" ;
rdfs:comment "A licensed professional engineer who departs from an employer firm (typically following internal disagreement), co-founds a competing engineering firm, and promptly contacts the former employer's clients — including those with projects under active discussion — to solicit new business, bearing obligations to avoid supplanting the incumbent, to refrain from disparaging the former employer's competence, and to compete fairly without misuse of confidential client relationships developed during prior employment." ;
rdfs:subClassOf <http://proethica.org/ontology/intermediate#EmployerRelationshipRole> .
Metadata
Ontology
Type
Class
Content Hash
1fc8b4463dc47dfd...Last Updated
2026-03-12 16:49
Extraction Provenance
Discovered in Case
168
Discovered In Pass
1
Discovered In Section
facts
First Discovered At
2026-03-02T02:36:49.881792+00:00
First Discovered In Case
168
Generated
2026-03-02T02:36:49.881792+00:00
Was Attributed To
Case 168 Extraction