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by epolanski 808 days ago
Breaking fiduciary duty would be the first that comes to my mind.

Previous user took a very huge risk. I've seen similar stuff happen, you can get sued (along whoever told you, but you need proof) just for the sake of making an example in front of the rest of the company.
4 comments
sgentle 807 days ago
Sibling commenters: for what it's worth, the notion of an employee having a fiduciary duty to their employer isn't as crazy as it sounds. eg, see here: https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=724a91e1-94f1...

That said, I think it'd be a pretty tough argument to make that an employee following the instructions of their superior was breaching fiduciary duty. If they weren't acting to their employer's benefit, then whose? Employee fiduciary duty cases tend to be more about things like embezzling or competing with your own company while you're still working there.

An example of Fox getting shut down for trying to claim that sexual harassment was a breach of fiduciary duty: https://www.barnespc.com/news-articles/limitations-on-the-sc...

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epolanski 807 days ago
> That said, I think it'd be a pretty tough argument to make that an employee following the instructions of their superior was breaching fiduciary duty.

There has to be proof about that. If everything was verbal how do you prove it?

There's no way around the fact that sabotaging your company is illegal and a breach of contract.

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ikiris 807 days ago
The leap you took from following your director's expectations to sunset a product to sabotaging your company is pretty epic.
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hn_throwaway_99 807 days ago
Thanks for the correction, TIL.
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systemvoltage 808 days ago
CEO can say it is his fiduciary duty to phase out old software and put a brand spanking new modern enterprise grade system.

Also, still it is not illegal. Just that the shareholders need to sue him to matter at all.

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hn_throwaway_99 807 days ago
Fiduciary duty is a particular legal concept about the responsibility one party has to another, and only applies in specific, defined circumstances. A random developer doesn't have a fiduciary duty to anyone, and he wasn't taking any risk.
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ikiris 808 days ago
Where do you think fiduciary duty exists as a random software dev?
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