Apple v Lancaster And The Need For Vigilance

Apple's recent law suit against its former employee, Simon Lancaster1, is an illustration of how vulnerable highly innovative companies are to employee trade secret theft.

Secrets provided to a journalist

Apple alleges that Lancaster used his position of trust as a very senior member of staff to gain access to meetings and documents outside his own job's responsibilities. It claims that he fed secrets obtained in this way to a journalist who published them, attributing them to a source at Apple. In return, the journalist provided benefits to Lancaster including, it is alleged, media coverage for a start-up company Lancaster had invested in. This activity appears to have intensified even after Lancaster resigned from Apple to join Arris Composites, a material design company, in 2019.