BlackBerry Sues Its SVP of Software to Prevent Him From Going to Work for Apple

BlackBerry sued its SVP of Software Sebastien Marineau-Mes preventing him from leaving the company to go work for Apple, reports iMore.

A ruling from the Ontario Superior Court of Justice reveals that Marineau-Mes began discussing the move from BlackBerry to Apple in September 2013. He was offered the position of VP of Core OS in December and accepted, giving a written resignation to BlackBerry with two months notice on December 23rd.

Unfortunately, Marineau-Mes had signed a contract promoting him to BlackBerry EVP of Platform Development and requiring him to provide six months notice of resignation.


BlackBerry sued him successfully to enforce the contract. They issued the following statement on the matter.

"BlackBerry will not stand by while a former employee violates his employment contract. It is unfortunate that we had to take this step, but we will do whatever is necessary to ensure that employees honor the agreements they make with us. When we enter into an agreement with an employee, as we have with Mr. Marineau, we expect him to honor his commitment just as he would expect that we will honor ours. We are pleased that the court has endorsed our position and ruled that the employee contract and its terms are valid."

It's unclear if Apple will wait until his contract expires in June or whether they will look for another candidate.

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