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by ricefield 2343 days ago
Not sure why you're laughing, this is an actual legal term: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fiduciary-responsibi...
2 comments

That's for directors and stockholders, not random employees.
The concept also applies to random employees. For example, if an employee placed in charge of a shop charges customers more than the set prices and keeps the difference for himself, that would be a breach of the duty of loyalty. The idea is that the employee is abusing the trust placed in him and appropriating the company's business interests for himself. It can happen at any level, from executives with conflicts of interest to employees stealing from the till.
> Apple filed the lawsuit in Santa Clara County Superior Court against Gerard Williams III, who left the company last year after more than nine years as chief architect for the custom processors that power iPhones and iPads to start Nuvia Inc, which is designing chips for servers.
Chief architect. AKA engineer.
His LinkedIn literally says, "Senior Director": https://www.linkedin.com/in/gerard-williams-iii-27895aa/

It's not like he was some kind of low-ranking IC engineer

Director in this sense does not mean what it means in the definition for "duty of loyalty", which is talking about board members, not (even high-ranking) employees.
Wikipedia is good for a broad definition of the term "duty of loyalty" but in CA that duty extends to all employees (see e.g. https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/sd-fi-eaton-26...).
Well, being a "senior director" (sounds like an oxymoron to me) would seem to apply.
I'm laughing because my understanding is that he's an employee, if he's beholden to fiduciary duties then it's a different situation.