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Former Tencent employee ordered to pay US$167,000 for breaching non-compete pact after joining TikTok owner ByteDance

  • The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People’s Court on March 22 issued a ruling against Chen Shuo for breaking a six-month non-compete agreement with Tencent
  • Chen was ordered to pay Tencent compensation for the breach and return the sum he received from the firm after signing the non-compete pact

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Internet giant Tencent Holdings recently won a case against a former employee, who breached a non-compete agreement with the company. Photo: Reuters
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A former employee of Tencent Holdings has been slapped by a Beijing court with a fine totalling 1.1 million yuan (US$167,000) for breaking a non-compete agreement with the company after he joined TikTok-owner ByteDance, heating up the rivalry between the two Chinese internet giants.

The Beijing No 1 Intermediate People’s Court on March 22 issued a ruling against Chen Shuo, who worked as a senior editor in Tencent’s content platform department for two-and-a-half years, for breaking the six-month non-compete clause in his employment contract with the Shenzhen-based company, according to court documents published on the official database China Judgements Online on March 31.

Chen, who left Tencent in March 2019 with an average monthly salary of 52,972 yuan, was found by the court to have been inside Beijing-based ByteDance’s offices, walking around the site with documents and speaking with the tech unicorn’s employees there on multiple days during one week in August 2019. Tencent provided video evidence of Chen’s presence inside ByteDance’s offices.

The court ruled that Chen’s presence at ByteDance was “different from an ordinary visit”, while also citing email records provided by Tencent that were labelled “highly sensitive and confidential”.

A man is seen walking inside the Beijing headquarters of ByteDance, which operates short video apps TikTok and Douyin, on July 7, 2020. Photo: Reuters
A man is seen walking inside the Beijing headquarters of ByteDance, which operates short video apps TikTok and Douyin, on July 7, 2020. Photo: Reuters

Chen argued that he did not sign a new employment contract directly with ByteDance, and that he was just an “ordinary employee” at Tencent without access to confidential information, according to court documents. He also indicated that Tencent had no proof the video evidence was during his contract’s non-compete period, and that the video violated his privacy because it was taken without his consent.

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