Lexmark gags HP’s Bruce Dahlgren
Head of ‘worldwide’ sales restricted to EMEA following litigation
Oct 2006
HP’s
senior vice president of worldwide enterprise sales has been forbidden
from discussing the company’s North American policy following
litigation from a competitor. Bruce Dahlgren left Lexmark to join HP’s
Imaging and Printing Group (IPG) in January of this year. However, his
role is currently restricted to Europe, the Middle East and Africa
until one year after leaving Lexmark.Dahlgren told a customer and
analyst conference in San Francisco that litigation from Lexmark is
“restricting my activity at this time to outside the North
Americas”.Lexmark sued HP in April over its hiring of Dahlgren, citing
a non-compete clause in his contract. HP countersued, questioning the
legality of the contractual clause.Slides used by Dahlgren showing
changes to HP’s IPG enterprise business carried the tagline ‘Being
implemented outside of North America only at this time.'”We hired Bruce
Dahlgren from Lexmark and he was running North America so we are
respecting that particular part of the arrangement,” said Vyomesh
Joshi, executive vice president of HP IPG.”He has a non-compete so he
cannot really play out the strategy that he talked about in North
America.”