Tecmo Muzzling Itagaki?
- Scribbled on June 18th, 2008 by Jonathon Howard
- Filed in Industry News, Legal Brief, WTF
The saga continues! Tecmo is trying to silence their, at one time, “celebrity” developer Tomonobu Itagaki. Last Tuesday, June 10th, Tecmo filed an appeal to the Tokyo District Court asking the court to restrict Itagaki from making any public comments about Tecmo. Specifically, Tecmo is asking the court to prevent Itagaki from discussing Tecmo:
- Trade secrets, including software, marketing and development.
- Business policies, specifically making false or misleading statements about internal practices and criticizing games developed by other Tecmo employees.
- In public, while still employed by the company (Itagaki’s last day is July 1st).
- In a defamatory many which would hurt Tecmo’s reputation.
The next few months are going to be interesting times for Itagaki, Tecmo, and its 300 employees, who are also suing the company. If I was more familiar with the Japanese legal system and their courts I might pontificate somewhat, but I’m going to make a wild guess though and say that Itagaki leaves, Tecmo pays off him and its employees, who stay, their board of directors is thankful they no longer have to deal with a rogue employee, and Itagaki moves on to give headaches to a new company and board.
(Thanks, Engadget Japan.)
July 24th, 2008 at 3:56 pm
[...] attempted to put a gag order on Itagaki, which has failed (+1 to Itagaki), so now the man famous for the revitalization of the [...]