back to article Ex-VMware veep loses attempt to throw out his own $1.5m legal win

A former VMware veep who claimed tens of millions of dollars from the virtualization company over whistleblower victimisation has lost his legal attempt (PDF) to throw out a $1.5m arbitration award made in his favour. Dane Smith, a one-time vice president of the Americas at VMware, blew the whistle some years ago on a secret …

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  2. Detective Emil

    Isn't he also due a (potentially) big bung for exposing a fraud on the US government?

  3. deive

    Every tech company I've worked for has a non-compete agreement - you can't just quit and go to the competition! What are the lawyers doing, surely they can't quit directly for the other side? Suppose this is the same as the old politician revolving door style job opportunity.

    1. MiguelC Silver badge

      The court isn't (or shouldn't be) the opposition

      The other lawyers are!

    2. LDS Silver badge

      AFAIK non-compete agreement are forbidden in California. That's why Jobs, Schmidt & C made an illegal agreement not to look for each others engineers. The whistleblower then was Palm CEO, but IIRC it was settled out of court before the class action started.

      Thereby, my take is his lawyer behaviour, albeit unethical (but is there anything ethical in the lawyer profession?) was not illegal. He should have complained much earlier. Did he think she would have helped him from the other side? How naive, if so...

      Anyway, a quite disgusting situation, including the lawyers fees....

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  4. The Nazz Silver badge

    Look on the bright side ...

    At least he wasn't ripped off by his own lawyer(s) to the tune of $300k+.

    Any impact on costs of losing his later application?

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Is it argued by the judge why the plaintiff should object at a certain point in time and not another?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward


      You have to object in a timely fashion. You can't wait and see how things work out and then only object if they go poorly for you.

  6. Sean Hunter

    Lot of people don't know what Jams is

    JAMS is the arbitration service. His counsel didn't join the opposing counsel, she joined JAMS, in the office of the arbitrator. It's not clear why your lawyer joining the arbitrating judge's office would make them biased against you, but that's what he was claiming. The real judge threw that out saying if he wanted to make that claim he would have had to object at the time rather than waiting to see the award and then making the objection.

  7. EveryTime

    JAMS isn't a court system. It is a private arbitration service, often staffed by former judges.

    It's a lucrative moonlighting or retirement gig, so the courts often imbue it with semi-judicial power and have a heavy bias to enforcing its rulings. Yet it doesn't even have the ethics rules of regular lawyers. ("Is it specially illegal? No? Then it's OK to do.")

    In this case even a layman can understand how it's a conflict of interest, and how you might not get an impartial hearing if you refuse the waiver.

  8. rag2

    Bleak House…

    Just as in Dickens' Bleak House, it would seem that the only real victors in the case are members of the legal profession. Unlike Richard in Bleak House who ended up with nothing, Dane Smith is better off at the end of the proceedings. But not as better off as the legal profession.

    Odd sort of Justice!

  9. Brandon 2

    300 large...

    Wants his cake and all that... so he accepts the settlement, but wants more now? Should have told them where to stick it the first time...

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