Short answer: worse than most people assume, and the deleting is usually worse than the downloading. Forensic review of a company laptop reconstructs which files were opened, when an external drive was plugged in, what was copied to it, and what was deleted afterward — often to the minute. And the exposure does not depend on your noncompete being enforceable: Wisconsin has separate statutes that reach unauthorized copying on their own.
This is the single most common fact pattern in Wisconsin noncompete litigation. It is also the one where people most often make their position materially worse in the week after they leave.
What does a forensic examination actually show?
More than most departing employees expect. A standard examination of a company-issued computer will reconstruct when a file was accessed, opened, modified, copied, or saved; when external storage devices were connected and disconnected, with the device's make and serial number; which websites were visited and what was searched; and which programs were run.
It also captures deletions, including permanent ones. That matters more than the copying, because deletion is the fact that changes how a court reads everything else. Taking files can look like carelessness. Deleting them afterward looks like concealment, and it supplies the intent element that an employer otherwise has to argue for.
A 2025 Wisconsin case between an industrial parts and services company and a former technical sales employee, filed in Brown County Circuit Court
A departing technical sales employee was found, through forensic review of his company laptop, to have spent roughly eighteen months emailing customer lists, pricing sheets, technical specifications, and vendor information to himself and to his spouse. In his final two weeks he connected a small consumer thumb drive to the laptop on five separate days, copying files from the company's local drive, its SharePoint, and its Teams storage, and creating folders on the drive to organize them. The examination identified the drive by name and serial number, logged each connection and disconnection time, and recorded that he permanently deleted numerous files across two of those same days. Weeks before resigning he had already registered a competing company with the state. The employer obtained a temporary injunction barring him from performing similar work, from soliciting its customers, and from using any of the information — and ordering all of it returned.
Does this matter if my noncompete is unenforceable?
Yes, and this is the part that surprises people. An overbroad noncompete is void in Wisconsin under Wis. Stat. § 103.465, and a void covenant cannot be used to stop you working. But the confidentiality obligation in the same agreement is analyzed separately and often survives when the competition restraint does not.
Beyond the contract entirely, two Wisconsin statutes reach this conduct directly. Section 134.90, the Uniform Trade Secrets Act, protects customer information, pricing models, and technical material the company took reasonable steps to keep secret. Section 943.70 makes it an offense to copy or take possession of company data without authorization — and where an employment agreement limits computer use to the employer's own business purposes, using those systems to prepare a competing venture falls outside what was authorized. Section 895.446 turns that into a civil claim with damages, costs, and fees.
So the honest framing is that the download exposes you regardless of what happens to the noncompete.
Can my spouse or my new employer be dragged in?
They can. If you forwarded material to a spouse's email account, Wisconsin recognizes claims for aiding and abetting a breach of fiduciary duty and for tortious interference against the person who received and used it. A new employer or a company you formed can be named as well, on the theory that it obtained the information knowing where it came from.
In practice this is what turns a dispute between one employer and one employee into litigation against a household and a start-up.
What should I do if I have already taken files?
The instinct to clean it up is the instinct to resist. Everything below assumes you want to improve your position rather than create a second problem:
- Do not delete anything. Not the files, not the emails, not the drive. Deletion after you are on notice is spoliation, it is discoverable, and it is the fact most likely to cost you the benefit of the doubt.
- Do not plug the drive into anything else. Every connection writes a new record. Set it aside untouched.
- Tell your lawyer the full extent before anyone else reconstructs it. A voluntary, complete return negotiated early is a different posture than a return compelled by court order after a forensic report.
- Tell your new employer. They will find out. Learning it from a cease-and-desist letter is worse for you than hearing it from you.
- Separate what is yours from what is theirs. Your own contacts, your general skills, and your professional knowledge travel with you. Customer lists, pricing sheets, quotes, surveys, and forms the company built do not.
An overbroad noncompete is void in Wisconsin — not narrowed. Find out where yours stands.
Talk to a Wisconsin Noncompete Attorney →