You're a partner at a mid-sized architecture firm in Midtown. You just discovered your senior project manager has been funneling clients to a shell company he set up with his brother in Queens. He collected $340,000 in salary and bonuses over the eighteen months he was doing it. You feel gut-punched — and you want that money back. In New York, the faithless servant doctrine is often how employers get it. This is one of the oldest and sharpest weapons New York gives an employe

Your Chief Operating Officer resigned on a Monday. By Wednesday, you learn she'd spent the last eighteen months quietly funneling business to a side company she owned with her husband — while collecting a $340,000 salary from you. She thinks the worst you can do is sue her for the profits she diverted. She's wrong. Under New York's faithless servant doctrine, you may be able to force her to hand back every dollar of compensation you paid her during the entire period she was d

You promoted your operations manager to run your Long Island City warehouse. Three years and roughly $650,000 in salary and bonuses later, an internal audit reveals he's been steering purchase orders to his brother-in-law's supply company at inflated prices, pocketing kickbacks the whole time. You want him gone, obviously — but you also want back every dollar you paid him while he was betraying you. The faithless servant doctrine in New York is the tool that makes that recove

Your CFO resigned last Thursday. On Friday, your bookkeeper flagged a decade of vendor invoices that don't tie to any project you can find. By Monday, an internal audit shows he'd been steering business to a shell company owned by his brother-in-law — and pocketing kickbacks on every invoice you paid. You want him prosecuted, but that's the DA's decision. What you actually control is a powerful civil remedy: under the faithless servant doctrine New York courts have applied si

Your operations manager has been with you for seven years. You paid her $185,000 a year, plus bonuses. Last month you discovered she'd been steering your best clients to a side company her brother runs — and she's been doing it for at least eighteen months. Your first instinct is to fire her and sue for the lost business. But under New York law, you may have a far more powerful remedy: clawing back every dollar of salary and bonus you paid her during the period of disloyalty.

You promoted your operations director three years ago. She built relationships with your biggest clients, attended your strategy meetings, and pulled in a $280,000 salary plus bonus. Then your CFO finds an invoice trail showing she's been routing a slice of your business to a side company she set up with her husband, for nearly two years. The faithless servant doctrine in New York is one of the most powerful tools you have when this happens, and most employers have never hear