BlackBerry has probably not been a fun place to work for the last couple of years for rather obvious reasons. So when a company that’s doing significantly better throws one of BlackBerry’s execs a lifeline it’s hard to blame that person for latching onto it as quickly as possible. That said, it’s probably not cool to jump into your new gig if it means breaking a contract with your previous employer and iMore reports that BlackBerry has now sued one of its former executives for trying to flee to the greener pastures of Cupertino four months too early.
According to iMore, BlackBerry senior VP of software Sebastien Marineau-Mes gave the company two months notice that he’d be leaving for Apple back in December. However, Marineau-Mes’s contract clearly stated that he needed to give BlackBerry six months notice before accepting a job at another company, which is why BlackBerry sued him to keep him in Waterloo for another four months. iMore says that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice this month ruled in BlackBerry’s favor, meaning that Marineau-Mes will have to serve out the remainder of his term at BlackBerry without parole.
“BlackBerry will not stand by while a former employee violates his employment contract,” the company told iMore. “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.”
BlackBerry’s decision to sue to keep Marineau-Mes seems to be another sign of its renewed sense of fight under new CEO John Chen. Chen has also decided to pick fights with both T-Mobile CEO John Legere for showing disrespect to the company and with American Idol host Ryan Seacrest for creating a BlackBerry knockoff keyboard attachment for the iPhone.
