A former Tencent employee Chen Shuo has been fined about $167,000 by a Beijing court for breaching the non-compete agreement he signed with Tencent. The Beijing Number 1 Intermediate People’s Court ruled that Chen was guilty of interacting in a manner that indicated he could have joined TikTok-owner ByteDance less than six months after leaving Tencent. The Beijing Court then ordered Shuo to pay 1.1 million yuan (about $167,000) to his former employer for the breach.

A growing rivalry has been observed between Tencent and ByteDance in recent years, as both companies continue to battle for market superiority in various areas of their businesses. Chen was a former Senior Editor in Tencent who left the company in March 2019. He was spotted in ByteDance premises on several occasions in August 2019 that indicated he could have joined the company before the expiration of the mandatory period of the non-compete agreement.

Tencent insisted that Chen’s presence in ByteDance premises was different from an ordinary visit, and the company also tendered evidence of email communication between Chen and ByteDance.

Chen, in his defense, claimed that he did not sign a new employment contract directly with ByteDance, and therefore could not have been deemed to have breached the agreement. He also claims that Tencent had no proof that the video evidence tendered to the court was during the non-compete agreement period. He also said that he was filmed without his content, and Tencent had violated his privacy.

However, the court ruled that Chen should pay a fine totaling more than 1.1 million yuan in compensation and also refund Tencent’s 158,900 yuan payment that came with the signing of the non-compete agreement.

ByteDance presently has a case against Tencent in court, alleging that the company violated Chinese antitrust laws by restricting access to content from Douyin, ByteDance’s local version of TikTok its platforms, and is requesting damages of 90 million yuan. Chen joins the growing list of former Tencent employees who had been fined for breach of its non-compete agreement.

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(source)

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