Ex-EMC executive can't start new job
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A Massachusetts court has restrained a former EMC Corp. executive from beginning a job with Hewlett-Packard Co. he was due to start today in a legal fight over a noncompete agreement.
The dispute erupted last week, when news broke that EMC's storage division president, David Donatelli, was leaving the Hopkinton company to take a job running HP's server, storage, and networking groups.
EMC and HP declined to comment yesterday; Donatelli and his attorneys could not be reached.
EMC sued last week, seeking a preliminary injunction to bar Donatelli from taking the job. It cited a noncompete clause in his employment contract.
Donatelli filed suit in California, which generally does not recognize noncompete clauses, seeking to dissolve the agreement.
But a Massachusetts court "concludes that the covenant which Donatelli signed is an enforceable contract," Stephen Neel, of Suffolk County Superior Court, said in an order issued yesterday.
