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Malcolm Goodwin’s Promise IT Solutions business has been slapped with a temporary injunction and Net-Integrated Consulting Inc. is seeking a permanent injunction, alleging that Goodwin directly solicited its clients, breaking a non-solicitation agreement Goodwin signed when he worked for NIC prior to starting his business. The case will go to court on March 26.

In the meantime, on Jan. 24 Goodwin, through his attorney, filed a request to amend his answer to the complaint filed by NIC to include a counterclaim for tortious interference. The request claims that Jan Post of Net-Integrated Consulting approached the Iowa Foundation for Medical Care and intentionally “stated that they were helping Malcolm Goodwin d/b/a Promise IT violate a non-compete agreement.” It also said that NIC, through Post, misrepresented the temporary injunction to the IFMC, which caused Goodwin to lose two to three service contracts. Goodwin seeks compensation for his damages and a court ruling that NIC violated his rights.

The situation began when Goodwin joined NIC on March 20, 2006, and signed a non-solicitation agreement prohibiting him from soliciting any of NIC’s customers to patronize a competing or similar business for a year after the termination of his employment. Goodwin left NIC on Feb. 28, 2007, and started Promise IT less than a month later. Shortly afterward, court documents filed in Polk County District Court say, two of NIC’s clients – Primus Software and ABC Virtual (a company owned by the brother-in-law of NIC’s owner Hung Nguyen) – told NIC that Goodwin had contacted them regarding his new IT business.

Both NIC and Promise IT are minority-owned and specialize in information technology staffing and consulting. According to court documents, Goodwin left NIC when it refused to give him 49 percent ownership in the company, an incentive Goodwin claimed was promised to him when he was hired.

“I think it’s clear from my history and background that business ownership is important to me,” Goodwin said in an interview with the Business Record. He added that if he had been offered an ownership role, “I probably would have thought about staying at the company.”

NIC refused to comment on the pending civil suit.

However, NIC’s chief financial officer, Robert Vance, states in court documents that NIC provided Goodwin with “extensive in-house training on the Net-Integrated Consulting pricing model and recruiting methods.” He said, “The pricing model information that Malcolm gained is valuable confidential information. With this information, Malcolm will know how to undercut Net-Integrated Consulting.”

According to court documents, Goodwin claimed that he “did not obtain any trade secrets or confidential information” and that he had “no special training nor gained any confidential information from his employment” with NIC.

On May 18, 2007, NIC filed a petition, alleging that Goodwin had breached his obligations under the master employment agreement and requesting injunctive relief. In a court hearing on July 24, Goodwin conceded that he had an indirect selling relationship with Iowa Select Farms, Palisades and Wells Fargo & Co. and agreed to refrain from directly or indirectly soliciting these NIC customers. The court also issued a temporary injunction restricting Goodwin from directly or indirectly soliciting Meredith Corp., the “Pella Group,” Retirement Investment Services at Principal Financial Group Inc., Nationwide and Briggs Corp., as well as participating in the “preferred vendor list” at the IFMC. Under the ruling, Goodwin is still allowed to pursue the same work so long as he does not solicit NIC’s customers.

The temporary injunction will stand until the court considers an order regarding NIC’s petition for permanent injunctive relief on March 26.

“To be blunt, whenever you spin off and open a competing business as to what you were doing previously, it’s always an issue with the former company trying to stop you from getting into the business,” Goodwin said, “and obviously the way companies do that is to try to throw a bunch of legal challenges in your path to success. One thing we’ve been very cognizant of is we want to live up to every agreement we made to every company, and we continue to live up to the agreements that were in place under the previous place.”

Correction: The Feb. 4 Business Record article headlined “Goodwin’s business faced with injunction” should have described the agreement between Malcolm Goodwin and his former employer, Net-Integrated Consulting Inc., as a non-solicitation agreement. As stated in the article, a court injunction allows Goodwin to compete for information technology staffing and consulting work, but not to solicit NIC’s customers.