Shopee S’pore Sues Ex-Employee For Working For ‘Competitor’ ByteDance, Judge Dismisses Claim

Shopee Sues Former Senior Employee Who Joined ‘Competitor’ ByteDance

In October last year, Shopee Singapore sent a letter to its ex-employee Mr Lim Teck Yong, in an attempt to forbid him from working for competitor company ByteDance. Mr Lim did not comply, prompting Shopee to sue him.

However, the e-commerce firm did not eventually win the case.

Its claims were dismissed in a judgment yesterday (31 Jan), and termed “very weak” by Justice Kwek Mean Luck.

Timeline of Mr Lim’s employment: Shopee to ByteDance

According to the judgment text for the case between Mr Lim Teck Yong and Shopee, Mr Lim first joined Shopee Singapore in August 2015, as the head of HQ’s regional operations. Shopee operates in several markets, such as Southeast Asia, Taiwan and Brazil.

Upon onboarding, Mr Lim signed multiple documents, including:

•  A Restrictive Covenants Agreement (RCA) with a non-solicitation and non-competition clause
• An Employee Confidentiality Agreement (ECA)

In particular, the RCA that he endorsed stated that if he were to leave the company, he was not allowed to seek or accept jobs with a competitor for at least 12 months.

During his time at Shopee, he subsequently undertook more roles such as head of Shopee’s regional people team and senior director of HQ’s regional operations.

In May 2023, Mr Lim resigned.

In September the same year, he joined Internet technology company ByteDance, which owns TikTok and TikTok shop. At ByteDance, he took on the role as leader of TikTok Shop’s governance and experience team.

Shopee sends letter to forbid ex-staff from working for ByteDance

Upon learning about Mr Lim’s new employment at ByteDance, the e-commerce firm sent him a letter on 6 Oct 2023 claiming that he had breached the non-competition restriction stated in the RCA.

The letter warned Mr Lim to resign from ByteDance with immediate effect. In addition, it demanded him to provide undertakings to comply with the RCA and ECA.

Mr Lim, however, did not adhere to the aforementioned terms. This prompted Shopee to take him to court.

In court, Shopee was represented by lawyers Mr Clarence Ding Si-Liang and Ms Ariane Kea Tong from JWS Asia Law Corporation. Amongst the claims they laid out was their contention that Mr Lim’s job scopes at both Shopee and ByteDance had “substantially similar” overlaps.

They also claimed that Mr Lim had obtained confidential information when he participated in Shopee’s meetings, where they would discuss the company’s involvement in all markets.

Former employee denies Shopee’s allegations

In response, Mr Lim denied Shopee’s allegations. He was represented by Mr Tham Wei Chern and Ms Charis Wang from Fullerton Law Chambers.

He asserted that he did not breach the non-competition restriction stated in the RCA.

According to him, the geographical scope of both jobs did not overlap. He highlighted that he was in Brazil during the last 12 months of his employment with Shopee. During this period, he was involved solely in the Brazil market.

Moreover, his responsibilities for both roles were different. At Shopee Brazil, he was engaged in tasks such as handling payment, fraud and warehousing. These were not within the job scope of his new role at TikTok Shop.

Judge dismisses Shopee’s claims

Terming Shopee’s  case “very weak”, Justice Kwek eventually dismissed them.

In particular, he suggested that Shopee’s claim would be unfair to Mr Lim’s future employment plans as it would mean that he cannot be employed in all markets in which Shopee is operating.

Moreover, Justice Kwek also added that Mr Lim had already provided undertakings when he signed the RCA back in 2015. Thus, Mr Lim was not risking any breaches by refusing to provide the undertakings demanded in Shopee’s letter.

Eventually, he maintained that Shopee has failed to prove the worthiness of trying their claims. Notably, he declared:

I have serious doubts that it could be said that there is a serious question if this would be regarded as reasonable as between the parties or reasonable in the interest of the public,

Both sides have been requested to file submissions on costs.

Also read: S’pore Engineer Sued For Keeping Bonus After Resigning, Has To Return Full Sum To Company

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Featured image adapted from The Business Of Fashion.