Confidentiality Agreement Between Staffing Firm and Employee Upheld

Confidentiality Agreement Between Staffing Firm and Employee Upheld

A recent case that landed before an Illinois appeals court pitted a staffing firm against an employee who later went on to work for a competitor. The court sided with the staffing agency, enforcing a confidentiality agreement that the employee had signed upon her employment with the firm. The court found that the employee had access to confidential customer information and that the staffing agency in question, her former employer, would be harmed by her subsequent employment by a competitor.

The agreement in question contained a specific provision noting that the employee would have access to sensitive customer information and that she was prohibited, outside of her official duties as an employee of the firm, from using or disclosing the information to a third party at any time. When the employee later quite and went to work for a competitor, she also took with her a list of customers, including information about customer preferences and other competitive information.

The staffing firm originally employing her sued to stop her disclosing this information, among other things. After a trial court initially found in favor of the employee, the appeals court reversed that decision, noting that the information that the employee had been given access to was not generally available to the public and could therefore be protected by the agreement she had originally signed.