Cartier v. Tiffany (Does Macy's tell Gimbels?)

Over the course of my long life, I've had two objects from Tiffany's. One was a sterling silver bookmark, given to me one Christmas by a close friend in college with expensive tastes. It's still around here somewhere, nestled in its "Tiffany Blue" bag. I believe the iconic "Tiffany Blue" box is long gone. 

The other item was a corporate gift: an ugly glass paperweight with my name and the occasion of the corporate award-giving engraved on it. Useless, unless you needed a murder weapon. When I parted company with that company, I left it on my desk. I should have kept the iconic "Tiffany Blue" box. Apparently they're worth something on Poshmark and eBay so that folks can make pretend they have something from Tiffany's. Or try to palm off a gift they bought at TJ Maxx as something more upscale.

From Cartier's, I have nada, zip, zilch.

If their box is also iconic, I have no reason to know. 

Neither store plays any role in my day to day, unless I pass by on a walk and notice it. Which I don't. (Notice, that is. I do sometimes pass by.)

What I did notice was that Cartier is suing Tiffany, claiming that one of their employees decamped to Tiffany last fall, having "downloaded confidential information about Cartier’s own high jewelry business before leaving the company and then passed it to her new colleagues."

Cartier claims its investigation into the case has “opened a window into Tiffany’s disturbing culture of misappropriating competitive information.”

A Tiffany spokeswoman said in a statement: “We deny the baseless allegation and will vigorously defend ourselves.” 

According to the suit, [Megan] Marino was fired from her new job in February after Cartier informed Tiffany’s legal department about her conduct. But by then, more senior Tiffany executives had already gained “a substantial amount of Cartier’s confidential and trade secret information,” Cartier claims. (Source: MSN)

Along with Tiffany, Megan Marino is also being sued.  

Out of work. Being sued. I wouldn't want to be Megan Marino, that's for sure. And there's even more reason not to want to be Megan Marino.

According to a complaint filed in a New York state court in Manhattan, Tiffany hired away an underqualified junior manager to learn more about Cartier’s “high jewelry” collection, where pieces typically cost $50,000 to $10m.

Cartier, a unit of Switzerland’s Richemont SA, called Tiffany’s hiring of Megan Marino a desperate bid to revive its own high jewelry unit after it was left in “disarray” following several departures, reflecting Tiffany’s “disturbing culture of misappropriating competitive information”.  (Source: The Guardian)

So, out of work (fired, not quit), being sued, and being referred to as "an underqualified junior manager" in court filings. Cool.

Something tells me Megan Marino doesn't have all that brilliant a future in the high end jewelry biz.

Going to work for a competitor is tricky business. 

Naturally, the competition is where you're going to have your best opportunities. You know the market. You know the industry. You know the business. You're more valuable to them than you are to a company in an altogether different world. 

It gets tricky, of course, when it comes to what you know and how you know it.

There's what's in your head, of course. That's the stuff you can't help bring with you. You know the product flaws. The company strategy. The inside dirt. But what to use from all the stuff that's in your head, and how to use it? That's where it gets pretty murky.

Can you use your knowledge of your old company's product weakness to strengthen your new company's messaging and product? How can you not? 

Reveal your old company's strategy? That seems less clear cut. You really shouldn't share that insider information, but if you're sitting there in your new company talking strategy, it's pretty hard not to weigh in with what you know about old company's plans. 

As for sharing the inside dirt? Everybody likes a little gossip.

Personally, I'm just as glad that I was never in the position to blab old company secrets to the competition.

What's in your head is one thing. What you've downloaded and scooted out with it on a thumb drive is quite another. 

No other way to look at it: that's a no-no. 

And if Megan Marino did walk out Cartier's door with "company confidential" material, and gave it to Tiffany, she deserved to be sued.

But what if that "company confidential" material was a plan that she'd worked on, that was her IP (even though it was technically Cartier's IP if she created it while there). Maybe she just wanted that material for future reference: What goes into a good plan? What's a good process? What makes for good design?

Not so much a problem to have and to hold, to cherish and to keep. Just a problem if you shared and shared alike. 

It does sound like a now-rueful Marino did a bit of sharing.

In an affidavit accompanying the complaint, Marino said Tiffany was “more interested in hiring me as a source of information than as a High Jewelry manager”.

Is this an admission that Marino shared info? Sounds like it could be.

And given Tiffany's willingness to fire Marino once Cartier's lawsuit appeared on their doorstop, it sounds like this may be a case of 'seduced and abandoned.'

Knowing absolutely nothing about the law here, I'm going with - whatever Megan Marino is guilty of - she ought to sue Tiffany for firing her. And, if she hasn't already, she ought to be naming names.

Her profile no longer seems to be available, but the other day you could still find Megan Marino on Linkedin. But her positioning statement read:

Experienced Merchandise Planner with a demonstrated history of working in the global luxury goods industry.

Good luck, Megan Marino. I'm guessing you're going to need it. Maybe you did nothing wrong, and will be fully exonerated. Maybe you just had a teenie-tiny iconic blue box full of ethical lapse. But there's a cloud hanging over you that won't go away anytime soon. 

I believe that most employers would rather take a chance on a murderer than someone who had their hand in the till - or downloaded company secrets and shared them with the competition. 

As we used to say, does Macy's tell Gimbels? Most assuredly not.