An employee referred customers to a competitor and was dismissed.
The Court held that it was a tort of misappropriation of trade secrets by the employee because the customer list was a trade secret of the company and therefore ordered the employee to pay compensation to the company without having to prove damage (but set the compensation at ILS20,000 out of the ILS100,000 that a Court can order under law in such a case without proof of damages). However, the Court held that the knowledge and experience gained while working is not a trade secret and the company did not invested in special training effort justifying a non-competition clause. Therefore, the Court held that the 12 months non-competition clause is invalid, as is the clause setting liquidated damages to be paid to the employer in case of breach by the employee.