Unfair competition and poaching investigations in Milan.

Free competition is the engine of the market and commercial development, but when it exceeds the limits of professional fairness it becomes a parasitic and unlawful conduct capable of destroying years of investment, patents and corporate effort. Very often the main danger is internal: disloyal collaborators or employees who, before tendering their resignation, illegally exfiltrate client databases or price lists to transfer them to a competitor or to use them in launching a parallel business.

In other scenarios, the threat comes from external competitors who spread distorted information to discredit your products in the market or who servilely imitate your trademarks and services to deceive consumers and divert clientele. Arcadia Company intervenes promptly with targeted corporate investigations and forensic examinations aimed at documenting the wrongdoing, providing your legal department with incontrovertible evidence needed to file an urgent injunction action under art. 700 c.p.c. and to obtain full compensation for the economic damage suffered.

The main types of unfair competition (Art. 2598 c.c.)

Our team of specialised private investigators can operate both in the field and digitally to document the most frequent cases governed by article 2598 of the Civil Code:

• Poaching of employees and key resources: systematic and targeted action by a competitor aimed at removing senior or strategic professionals, with the specific goal of disrupting your company or acquiring your confidential know‑how.
• Client poaching and diversion: former managers, agents or commercial partners who abusively use stolen lists and confidential information to contact your client network, offering targeted commercial proposals often below cost.
• Violation of the non‑compete agreement (Art. 2125 c.c.): investigations on former employees who, despite a written and duly compensated agreement, start a directly competing activity in the same geographic area or sector immediately after the termination of the relationship.
• Commercial denigration and discrediting: systematic dissemination of false or biased news regarding the quality of your products, the financial stability of your business or the regularity of your services, aimed at causing you to lose public contracts or private orders.
• Servile imitation and parasitism: exact or deceptive copying of packaging, logo, catalogs or the digital interface of your website (look‑alike strategy) orchestrated to exploit the notoriety and positioning of your brand.

Urgent regulatory framework: The timeliness of evidence collection is crucial. The evidence produced by Arcadia Company is specifically structured to support urgent motions under Article 700 of the Code of Civil Procedure, immediately blocking the competitor's harmful action before the damage becomes irreversible.

The employee loyalty obligation (Art. 2105 c.c.) and corporate disloyalty

Pursuant to article 2105 of the Civil Code, the employee has a specific duty of loyalty: he may not conduct business for himself or third parties in competition with the employer, nor disclose or use information relating to the organization and production methods of the company in a way that could cause prejudice.

The guidance issued by the Supreme Court of Cassation has confirmed that the mere removal or duplication of corporate files (such as billing records, CAD projects, marketing strategies) before resignation constitutes grounds for dismissal for just cause, regardless of whether the disloyal worker has already concretely used the data. The breach of the fiduciary bond occurs at the moment of the unauthorized extraction of the information.

Arcadia Company’s operational protocol: investigation and forensic IT

To effectively counter unfair competition, Arcadia Company applies a dual approach that combines traditional investigations with computer analysis of electronic devices:

1. Forensic IT and device examination: targeted technical analysis of computers, notebooks and corporate smartphones assigned to the suspect employee. Through forensic acquisition of digital media, we recover system logs and deleted files, tracing the illicit transfer of data to external USB drives, personal clouds or private email accounts.
2. Field observation and tailing: discreet monitoring of the subject’s movements to document and capture private meetings or secret gatherings with competing companies, carried out during working hours or during periods of feigned illness.
3. OSINT analysis and commercial channels: checks on chamber of commerce records, corporate shareholdings and digital platforms to identify the creation of new front legal entities registered to straw persons or close relatives of the disloyal employee.
4. Certified technical report: provision of a complete dossier of video, photographic and documentary evidence, usable directly in civil, labour or criminal proceedings for violation of trade secrets.