【Case】Employees used company resources to "do private work" and asked for sales commissions without success

On September 9, the Shunyi District People's Court of Beijing Municipality announced a labor dispute case: employee Pang established a company with the same business scope as the employer during his employment, and used work convenience to intercept the company's commercial resources for personal personal interests.

【Case Review】

Pang joined a thermal technology company in March 2018 as a salesman, responsible for liaising with domestic and foreign customers to sell the company's goods. From March 3 to May 2018, almost all of the foreign customers of Thermal Technology Company were contacted by Pang. In April 3, Pang established a machinery and equipment company, the English name of the company is highly similar to the English name of the thermal energy technology company, and the business scope also overlaps with the business scope of the thermal energy technology company.

After the establishment of the machinery and equipment company, Pang still used the website and email address used during his tenure in the thermal energy technology company to negotiate and communicate with customers, and some of the customers of the mechanical equipment company were also the previous cooperative customers of the thermal energy technology company. On May 2020, 5, Pang resigned from Thermal Energy Technology Company.

Later, when checking the bills, the thermal energy technology company found that many orders handled by Pang during his employment had not been returned, so it communicated with the relevant customers and was told that the above payments had been paid, and if there was any problem, it should verify with Pang.

Thermal Technology believed that Pang was suspected of embezzlement and reported it to the public security authorities in July 2020, and the case is being further handled.

At the same time, Pang applied for labor arbitration, requiring the thermal energy technology company to pay more than 2019.1 million yuan in sales commissions from January 2020 to May 5. In December 156, the arbitration committee ruled that Thermal Technology Company paid Pang more than 2020,12 yuan in sales commission. Dissatisfied with the ruling, the thermal energy technology company sued the court, requesting that it be ruled according to law that it did not need to pay Pang during his employment.

【Trial Process】

After hearing, the court found that while Pang was still working in Thermal Energy Technology Company, he established a company with overlapping business and highly similar English names to the company's operating business, and some customers who had previously cooperated with Thermal Energy Technology Company only cooperated with the machinery and equipment company after that, and the payment for multiple orders of the thermal energy technology company handled by Pang during his tenure was paid to the account of the company established by Pang.

Obviously, the purpose of providing labor during Pang's term of office has exceeded the scope of normal performance of labor contracts to obtain labor remuneration, and his relevant behaviors and practices are contrary to professional ethics and professional ethics, and are also inconsistent with the core socialist values of integrity and dedication, harming the interests of thermal energy technology companies, and should be negatively evaluated by law, so it was ruled that thermal energy technology companies do not need to pay Pang sales commissions from 2019 to 2020.

【Judge's interpretation】

In this case, although Pang did not sign a confidentiality and non-compete agreement with Thermal Energy Technology, he still had a duty of loyalty and diligence to the enterprise. However, Pang established a company that had a competitive relationship with the original employer during his employment and intercepted the customer resources of the original unit, which deviated from the basic value standards of loyalty and dedication of the employees, and harmed the legitimate rights and interests of the employer.

Sales commission is the remuneration paid to the employee by the employer after the employee obtains the income according to the employee's effort, and is a reward for the employee's loyalty, diligence and value-creating labor behavior. When the purpose of providing labor by employees is no longer simply to create value for the employer, it no longer meets the purpose and purpose of the distribution of sales commissions. Therefore, the court made the aforementioned judgment. (Workers' Daily reporter Zhang Weijie)