It was an internal tool and the VP was the head of IT. Everything still worked, it was just painful to use. He could have pulled the plug on it at any time.
Breaking fiduciary duty would be the first that comes to my mind.
Previous user took a very huge risk. I've seen similar stuff happen, you can get sued (along whoever told you, but you need proof) just for the sake of making an example in front of the rest of the company.
That said, I think it'd be a pretty tough argument to make that an employee following the instructions of their superior was breaching fiduciary duty. If they weren't acting to their employer's benefit, then whose? Employee fiduciary duty cases tend to be more about things like embezzling or competing with your own company while you're still working there.
> That said, I think it'd be a pretty tough argument to make that an employee following the instructions of their superior was breaching fiduciary duty.
There has to be proof about that. If everything was verbal how do you prove it?
There's no way around the fact that sabotaging your company is illegal and a breach of contract.
Fiduciary duty is a particular legal concept about the responsibility one party has to another, and only applies in specific, defined circumstances. A random developer doesn't have a fiduciary duty to anyone, and he wasn't taking any risk.
Even if it were an external tool, I fail to understand how there would be a legal problem. Companies use all sorts of shenanigans to encourage users to migrate. Immoral? Sure, but software crossed that bridge a long time ago.
Heaps of people online have stories about how Microsoft tricked them into upgrading Windows.
