7/11-7/17 1997
Two East Bay businesses founded on creating fun
and cooperation among corporate employees are themselves
embroiled in a legal battle that began as an employer/employee
dispute.
Total Rebound is suing its former employee and
newest competitor claiming he stole information
on ven dors and customers and absconded with business
ideas in violation of a confidentiality agreement.
Skip Smith was a sales associate at the Benicia-based
Total Rebound for a year before going across the
Carquinez Strait to Pacheco. There he opened his
own interactive games rental and teambuilding service
on January 28...
...Wllkinson's attorney, Michael Bettinger of
San Francisco, said he has an e-mail note Smith
wrote in which he admits to taking contracts with
customers and vendors out of the office and copying
them on outside copy machines. Bettinger said that
e-mail is "the smoking gun" that convinced
Plan-It Interactive to agree to a court order prohibiting
them from using Total Rebound's trade secrets...
... Smith conceded that Plan-lt Interactive acquired
one of the games Total Rebound just designed.
"We are probably going to resolve the entire
thing without any money changing hands, it is really
a misunderstanding more than anything else by Total
Rebound," said Miroglio, representing Plan-It
Interactive.
Wilkinson disagrees.
"I'm very angry about it," he said. "As
far as I'm concerned it was corporate theft, things
were stolen from us."
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