Court Puts Permanent Plug on Former Halliburton Employee’s Use of Trade Secrets

A former Halliburton employee who had worked at the company designing and manufacturing wellbore plugs left and formed his own company that designed and manufactured wellbore plugs.  Halliburton sued the former employee and his company.  Ultimately, a jury found in Halliburton’s favor, awarding it damages, and the trial court entered an injunction barring the former employee from using Halliburton’s trade secrets for eighteen months.

Not satisfied, Halliburton appealed, seeking a permanent injunction.  The Court of Appeals sided with Halliburton, holding that the trial court erred by refusing to enter a permanent injunction because the former employee failed to show that anything less than a perpetual injunction would protect Halliburton’s rights and “remove the competitive advantage obtained through the misappropriation.”  Halliburton Energy Servs., Inc. v. Axis Tech. LLC, 444 S.W.3d 251 (Tex. App.-Dallas 2014, no pet.)