Apple agrees to settle lawsuit against its ex-employee

The company filed its lawsuit in March last year, and the settlement order was approved recently.

Apple has agreed to settle a lawsuit against Simon Lancaster, its ex-product designer, who the company sued for stealing trade secrets and sharing them with a journalist for personal benefits.

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As per the terms of settlement Lancaster has to pay an undisclosed amount as compensation to Apple and is prohibited to disclose, communicate, transfer, discuss, or use any confidential information, in any form, without Apple’s express prior written authorisation, according to court orders.

The company filed its lawsuit in March last year, and the settlement order was approved recently.

“Despite over a decade of employment at Apple, Lancaster abused his position and trust within the company to systematically disseminate Apple’s sensitive trade secret information in an effort to obtain personal benefits,” according to the complaint filed by Apple.

“He used his seniority to gain access to internal meetings and documents outside the scope of his job’s responsibilities containing Apple’s trade secrets, and he provided these trade secrets to his outside media correspondent. The Correspondent then published the stolen trade secrets in articles, citing a “source” at Apple.”

The trade secrets Lancaster stole included details of unreleased Apple hardware products, unannounced feature changes to existing hardware products, and future product announcements.