EMC sues competitor that hired some of the ex-workers EMC has already sued

EMC this week sued a Silicon Valley startup on charges it illegally hired away EMC workers to gain access to EMC trade secrets.

In a suit filed in US District Court in Boston, the Hopkinton-based data-storage vendor asks a judge to smack Pure Storage with a legal stick, specifically, the return of all the proprietary EMC information it alleges Pure now has, a prohibition on "unlawfully interfering with EMC’s advantageous business relationships" and of course, damages. Lots and lots of damages. All of which would be in addition to any damages EMC might collect in suits against former workers now at Pure.

The complaint details alleged plots by Pure directors - some of whom used to work at EMC or its subsidiary VMWare, to entice key EMC salespeople to the new company and to bring with them as much secret EMC data as their thumbdrives could hold.

Since August 2011, at least forty-four of EMC's highly valued technical engineers and sales professionals have left EMC under suspicious circumstances and joined Pure Storage. These talented former EMC employees, who apparently now comprise over 50% of Pure Storage's entire sales force, possess confidential knowledge and information about EMC's technologically superior storage systems and the particular implementations of those systems at some of EMC's most strategically valuable customers. In many instances, these individuals were among the highest performing EMC professionals in their positions in either the entire nation or in their assigned regions. Legitimate hiring in the open market would not result in such overwhelming recruitment of high-achieving employees from a single company.