## Facts

- AMP manufactured electrical/electronic connector devices and competed directly with Molex in that industry.
- James Fleischhacker worked for AMP from 1973 to 1984 and became manager of AMP’s Components & Assemblies Division, overseeing a large workforce and thousands of parts; his role emphasized high-level planning, coordination, and personnel leadership.
- Molex offered Fleischhacker a senior marketing position; he resigned from AMP to accept the job.
- Fleischhacker had a confidentiality agreement with AMP but no noncompetition or other post-employment restriction barring work for a competitor.
- AMP sued Fleischhacker and Molex seeking injunctive relief, alleging that Fleischhacker would “inevitably” use or disclose AMP’s confidential information and trade secrets at Molex and that Molex recruited AMP personnel to obtain such information.
- After a bench trial, the district court found no evidence that Fleischhacker took, copied, recorded, or memorized confidential materials, and AMP could not identify specific information actually used at Molex.

## Issues

1. Whether AMP identified particularized, protectable trade secrets under Illinois law, rather than general business knowledge and managerial skill.
2. Whether AMP proved a concrete likelihood that Fleischhacker would misappropriate trade secrets in his new role sufficient to justify an injunction absent a noncompetition agreement.
3. Whether Molex’s recruitment and hiring of AMP employees constituted unfair competition through improper acquisition or use of confidential information.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit affirmed judgment for Fleischhacker and Molex.
- AMP failed to establish the existence of specific, protectable trade secrets as opposed to generalized strategic and managerial knowledge.
- AMP failed to show a non-speculative, likely threat of misappropriation; the court declined to infer misuse merely from job similarity and the employee’s prior access.
- AMP’s unfair-competition claim against Molex failed because hiring a competitor’s employees, without proof of improper acquisition or use of trade secrets, is not unlawful.

## Legal Principles

- A plaintiff seeking to enjoin a former employee’s competitive employment without a restrictive covenant must (1) identify genuine, particularized trade secrets and (2) prove a concrete likelihood of misappropriation.
- Broad categories of information (high-level strategies, general customer/financial familiarity, general manufacturing know-how) may be too diffuse, readily ascertainable, or inseparable from an employee’s general skills to qualify as trade secrets.
- An employee may use general skills, knowledge, and experience gained during employment in later work for a competitor; trade secret law cannot function as a de facto noncompetition agreement.
- Absent a restrictive covenant, there is no presumption of irreparable harm; injunctive relief requires specific proof of protectable secrets and threatened misuse.
- “Inevitable disclosure” arguments grounded only in speculation about what a former employee might do are insufficient to justify injunctive relief.

## Conclusion

The court refused to bar a former senior manager from working for a competitor where the employer did not bargain for a noncompetition agreement and failed to prove specific trade secrets or a concrete, non-speculative threat of misappropriation.


AMP Inc. v. Fleischhacker, 823 F.2d 1199 (7th Cir. 1987)