Blue Coyote Motel by Dianne Harman Page B

I’ll need to see the contracts he signed when he became an employee of Moore Labs. Do you have them?” Peter asked.
    "I had Monica go to HR and get Jeffrey's personnel file. All the documents that he signed when he was hired by Moore Labs are in it. Take a look and tell me what you think. Here's the file."
    Peter opened the large manila file folder Sidney handed him and began reading, trying to ignore Sidney, who was nervously pacing back and forth in the large office. Thirty minutes later, Peter closed the file.
    "Well, it's just as you thought. Jeffrey did sign a confidentiality agreement, a non-competition contract, and a contract regarding experiments. The last one, regarding experiments, is the one that provides that all discoveries are the legal property of Moore Labs. However, the problem is trying to enforce these contracts. If it's true that he has violated the contracts, and you seem certain that he has, you could sue him,” Peter said.
    “If we sue him, can you imagine the adverse publicity we would get? I don’t think that our stockholders and investors would be very happy about that. I also wonder if the questions that would surround the hormone would slow down FDA approval. That would make the stockholders and investors even angrier,” Sidney responded.
    Peter continued, “It would be very hard to extradite him from another country if he leaves the United States and then sells the formula in that country. Plus, litigation over ownership of his discovery would probably tie the hormone up in the courts for a long time, which would not sit well with Moore Labs' investors.”
    “Well,” Sidney said, “If you were me, what would you do? After all, this is what I pay you for.”
    "You're probably not going to like my advice. I'm looking at this from a practical standpoint as well as a legal standpoint. Legally, you win. Practically, you lose. Why don't you offer him a large sum of money and get him to leave Moore Labs? It's going to cost him the Nobel Prize either way. If what he has done is ever released to the public, the Nobel Committee will never award him the prize because he violated the terms and conditions of his employment. The Nobel Committee will never allow itself to become involved in a scandal. Unfortunately, because a company cannot receive the prize, only an individual can and no more than three at that, Moore Labs will not receive the publicity you were hoping to get if Jeffrey won."
    Peter went on. "If he leaves Moore, the company still owns the anti-aging hormone and he won't be eligible for the award because he doesn't own the hormone. Is my proposed solution perfect? No, but under the circumstances, it may be the best one for everyone. Don't you have access to some kind of slush fund so no one would know what has happened? One that wouldn't involve other people? Moore would simply release a statement that, due to health reasons, Jeffrey decided to take an early retirement. It happens all the time. Is it the end of his career? Probably, but he's the one who made the choice."
    Sidney didn't like to be put in a box, particularly one drawn by an employee. However, the more he thought about it, Peter's recommendation of an out-of-court settlement did provide a solution to a potentially devastating situation. This way, no one would ever know what really happened. After the initial statement and story, the press would no longer be interested and Moore would retain all its rights to the hormone.
    Sidney wondered how much money he'd need to pay Jeffrey to silence him. As the president of the company, he knew there was a large fund for just such a contingency. Not surprisingly, he was the only one who had access to it. The more he thought about the plan, the more convinced he became that it might just work.
    "Thanks for your counsel. Naturally, I don't want any of this conversation repeated. It's probably just as well that I don't tell you what I have decided to do. Under the circumstances, I