TORONTO-Motorola Inc. nixed a smooth transition for its former president and chief operating officer, Mike Zafirovski, to take the top seat at Nortel Networks Ltd. Motorola filed a lawsuit asserting that Zafirovski breached the noncompetition and trade-secret agreements he signed while employed at Motorola.
The lawsuit was filed Oct. 18 in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Ill. against Zafirovski, who was set to begin working for Nortel Nov. 15. Nortel said the lawsuit seeks an injunction to stop Zafirovski from joining Nortel for two years, from soliciting or hiring Motorola employees, and from using or disclosing Motorola’s confidential information.
Nortel said it is reviewing the lawsuit and intends to pursue discussions with Motorola to resolve the matter.
A prepared statement from Motorola said: “We take these matters seriously and will do what is necessary to protect Motorola.”
“It took close to 48 days for Sprint to hire Forsee from BellSouth,” said Nikos Theodosopoulos, senior analyst with UBS. “The original ruling in Microsoft vs. Google took close to two months. These examples suggest, that at a minimum, Zafirovski may not be able to start as CEO at Nortel on Nov. 15 as planned.”
In the BellSouth case mentioned by Theodosopoulos, Gary Forsee was delayed as he attempted to jump from his vice-chairman position at BellSouth Corp. to the chief-executive position at Sprint Corp. in 2003. A mediator settled the case, establishing one-year restrictions on Forsee, who was forbidden from disclosing trade secrets and from recruiting BellSouth employees, among other things.
In the Microsoft Corp. case against Google Inc., a similar battle ensued over Microsoft’s Kai-Fu-Lee, who left Microsoft in July to work for Google. Initially, a state of Washington judge ruled that Lee could not perform certain work for Google until a final ruling was issued. The case since has been moved to a federal court and is expected to go to trial in January.
