Facts
The defendant [A.] joined the plaintiff [X. AG] as "Head of E-Products" on 1 May 1989. In the employment contract dated 20 December 1988, a non-compete clause was agreed upon, according to which [A.] was not allowed to engage in a company in Switzerland that competes with the product areas supervised by [X. AG] for one year after the termination of the employment relationship. On 8 December 1998, [A.] terminated the employment relationship effective 31 March 1999. According to the commercial register extract dated 31 March 1999, [A.] founded the "[Y. AG] " together with [B.] with its registered office in [Z.] , whose statutory purpose is the trade and production of consumables and equipment for analytics and general laboratory needs. [X. AG] then sued [A.] for violation of the non-compete clause.Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court upheld the judgments of the lower instances, stating that the non-compete clause was validly agreed upon and that [A.] violated the non-compete clause through the establishment of [Y. AG] and its market presence. The Federal Supreme Court explained that the non-compete clause does not prevent the employee from engaging in activities…