Poached geeks cause IT court battle

Two Midrand based IT companies are at each other’s throats following the poaching of highly skilled staff and the misuse of confidential information.

Business Connexion was granted an Anton Piller order by the high court against competitor Datacentrix in an effort to stop the company from misusing sensitive information it may have acquired when it poached a team of six Cisco networking professionals from Business Connexion.

Ahmed Mahomed, CEO of Datacentrix, acknowledged that the Sherriff of the Court copied data from Datacentrix computers, but denied that the company has acted unethically. “We will comply with the order and we will defend it as we are entitled to do. For us it is business as usual. Datacentrix is an ethical company and we have nothing to hide.”

Benjamin Mophatlane, CEO of Business Connexion, said although it is common for skilled employees to move between companies, it is unethical when these employees share sensitive information with their new employers.

He said the situation evolved from a group of Business Connexion employees who were recruited by Datacentrix. These individuals then approached Business Connexion clients to switch to the new employer as they had sensitive information and insights about the client’s networks.

“You know that in a competitive tender process you may lose a client, but not through soliciting by previous employees. This is how we were alerted, as some of our clients asked whether we were aware of this. This is when we realised that some information passed hands,” Mophatlane said.

Although Mophatlane stated that several Business Connexion clients are involved, it is alleged that IBM was a target of these newly appointed Datacentrix employees. Mophatlane did not want to confirm or deny this stating that it would be contravention confidentiality agreements.

Datacentrix has until 23 April to reply to the order.

“There is a scarcity of skills in the market and it hurts. We have become a company where people want to work for us,” Mahomed said.

Source: Moneyweb

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