BlackBerry Wins Court Battle Against Top Software VP Who Left For Apple
Last September, Sebastien Marineau-Mes began discussions with Apple to leave his position at BlackBerry for a position on Apple's operating system team after nearly three years at the company.
In December, he was given a formal offer from Apple to serve as Vice President of Core OS, the team responsible for code shared between Mac OS X and iOS, according to the court opinion posted by iMore. Two days before Christmas, Marineau offered his resignation to BlackBerry and said he'd be leaving for Apple in about two months.
But two months wasn't enough notice, according to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruling released on Monday. The same month Marineau began discussions with Apple, he was promoted to executive vice president at BlackBerry, during a promotion freeze at the company. Then in October, he signed a contract saying he would give six months notice if he decided to leave.
BlackBerry decided that Marineau's move was a big enough slight that it was worth taking him to court over. And it won: the Ontario court decided that he had to fulfill his obligation.
It's not clear what that actually means for Marineau and his position at Apple - the odds are slim that either he or BlackBerry would want him to continue working at the company. Here's BlackBerry's official statement on the issue:
"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."