On Tuesday, the District Court of Massachusetts issued a preliminary injunction against Michael Hermalyn. He is the former head of VIP operations at DraftKings. In January 2024, Hermalyn abruptly left DraftKings and went to an industry competitor in Fanatics. The former DraftKings employee is being accused of stealing confidential information and taking it to Fanatics. 

That goes against Hermalyn’s nondisclosure and noncompete agreements he signed in August of 2020. This preliminary injunction was awarded due to the likelihood of the case’s success. Here was the court’s ruling.

“Since, as explained, Hermalyn likely misappropriated DraftKings’s confidential information and breached his noncompetition agreement through his employment at Fanatics, DraftKings has established that it would suffer irreparable harm absent injunctive relief,” the ruling said

What restrictions will Michael Hermalyn face because of the preliminary injunction?

Until February 1, 2025, Michael Hermalyn cannot provide services to a competing company, Fanatics included. That includes any aspect of the Business of the Company that Hermalyn may have received confidential information from. This means that Hermalyn can still work for Fantics but will have several restrictions. 

For the next nine months, he cannot work on anything at Fanatics that he was previously working on at DraftKings. Additionally, he cannot solicit or help hire anyone who’s working at DraftKings until next February. Lastly, Hermalyn cannot move, destroy, delete, alter, or dispose of anything that could contain confidential information.

DraftKings was pleased with the outcome while Fanatics was disappointed with the court ruling

In a statement provided by DraftKings, the company had this to say regarding the preliminary injunction against Michael Hermalyn.

“Today’s ruling by the Court is another victory for DraftKings in its effort to hold Mr. Hermalyn accountable for his brazen attempt to clone DraftKings’ successful VIP program by stealing DraftKings’ employees and trade secrets. We are pleased the Court enforced Mr. Hermalyn’s non-competition obligations in the United States, including ordering him to cease providing services for Fanatics relating to the work he performed for, or the information he obtained from, DraftKings” – statement via DraftKings

Michael Hermalyn can still work with Fanatics under the restriction of the preliminary injunction. Here’s what Fanatics had to say about the court’s ruling.

“Although we disagree with certain aspects of the Court’s ruling, we appreciate that the Court rejected DraftKings’ efforts to prevent Mike from working for Fanatics. Mike is looking forward to rolling up his sleeves and building Fanatics’ business consistent with the Court order. The Court’s order is preliminary, and Mike eagerly awaits his opportunity to present his case on the merits based on a full record.” – statement via Fanatics

The court believes Hermalyn solicited DraftKings employees

Two men, Andrew Larracey and Hayden Metz reportedly had phone calls with Michael Hermanlyn. It’s one of the bigger details in the ongoing case with the District Court of Massachusetts. Both Larracey and Metz gave similar testimonies to the court. Hermalyn denied offering jobs and discussing salaries with these two DraftKings employees. He tried telling the court that the two men approached him but they didn’t believe Hermalyn.