Brian Hall, the former Amazon Web Services cloud marketing vice president whom the company sued for taking a similar job at Google Cloud, appears to be cleared to work.
AWS sued Hall for allegedly violating a noncompete agreement, seeking to prevent him for working for a competitor for 18 months after leaving Amazon. Hall in court documents said he believed the agreement would not be enforced.
While there was no update in court documents related to the case, a source familiar with the situation said a settlement has been reached.
Late Thursday night, Hall tweeted, in part, "THANK YOU to all of the people who have supported me in the last few months. @charlesfitz [Charles Fitzgerald, a noncompete critic who supported Hall] I think you can retire the #freebrianhall tag now. I won't say much more..."
Hall also appears to have updated his title on his LinkedIn profile from "VP in purgatory, Google Cloud" to "VP, product and industry marketing, Google Cloud."
Amazon Web Services declined to comment.
Hall's case is the third high-profile lawsuit of its type filed by Amazon in recent memory, following the company's lawsuits against a sales executive who took a job at Google Cloud, and a former technology vice president who left to work at Seattle-area collaboration software company Smartsheet.
The most recent lawsuit renewed controversy over noncompete agreements. Critics have charged Amazon's agreements are too broad, and applied inconsistently and even punitively. Ultimately, these critics say, the practice of suing former employees could hurt Amazon's ability to recruit the talent it needs to stay competitive.
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