Groupon Blocks Advertising VP From Yelp Job Due to Trade Secrets

Groupon Inc.'s former vice president of global advertising jumped ship to Yelp Inc. seven months after joining Groupon, but he is barred by his employment contract and trade-secret concerns from doing so for 18 months, a federal judge in Chicago ruled.

Sung Shin’s contention that Groupon and Yelp aren’t competitors and that “nothing he learned at Groupon was of any use whatsoever” when he moved to Yelp for a better pay package is “absurd,” the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois said. It granted Groupon a preliminary injunction enforcing the noncompete clause in Shin’s contract, finding the ...