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 last week filed a lawsuit asserting that by taking the Nortel position, 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 on Nov. 15. Nortel said the lawsuit seeks an injunction to stop Zafirovski from joining Nortel for two years, prevent him from soliciting or hiring Motorola employees and keep him 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 issued from Motorola stated: “We take these matters seriously and will do what is necessary to protect Motorola.”
This is not the first time a wireless executive has ended up working for another company within the industry. 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.
“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 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 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.
