Sample only. Names, dates, dollar figures, and the law firm shown above are illustrative. The legal substance, statutory citations, case authority, evidentiary structure, and cure mechanics shown here reflect how a competent employment attorney drafts a real notice of breach with right to cure on a restrictive covenant matter governed by Illinois law.
Chen-Park Employment Law, LLC
233 South Wacker Drive, Suite 8400
Chicago, IL 60606
Tel: (312) 555-0143 · achenpark@chenpark-law.example
May 5, 2026
VIA CERTIFIED MAIL,
RETURN RECEIPT REQUESTED
AND ELECTRONIC TRANSMISSION
(j.tomic@harborline-medical.example)
AND HAND DELIVERY
Mr. Jovan T. Tomic
c/o Harborline Medical Devices, Inc.
2900 East Wilshire Drive
Naperville, IL 60563
and
General Counsel
Harborline Medical Devices, Inc.
2900 East Wilshire Drive
Naperville, IL 60563
Re: Notice of Breach and Opportunity to Cure — Restrictive Covenants and Confidentiality Undertaking under the Employment Agreement between Argosy Surgical Holdings, LLC and Jovan T. Tomic dated June 12, 2022 (the “Employment Agreement”)
Provisions at Issue: Section 9 (Non-Competition); Section 10 (Non-Solicitation of Customers and Employees); Section 11 (Confidentiality and Trade Secrets); Section 13 (Return of Property)
Cure Period Ends: 5:00 p.m. Central Time, May 19, 2026 (fourteen days)
Dear Mr. Tomic:
This firm represents Argosy Surgical Holdings, LLC (“Argosy” or our “Client”), your employer through January 23, 2026. We write to provide you with formal notice of breach of the restrictive covenants and the confidentiality undertaking set out in your Employment Agreement, and to extend a structured opportunity to cure those breaches before our Client commences proceedings for injunctive and monetary relief in the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Chancery Division. Argosy prefers cure to litigation. Cure must be complete on or before 5:00 p.m. Central Time on May 19, 2026.
Argosy is also providing concurrent notice to Harborline Medical Devices, Inc. (“Harborline”) of your post-termination obligations and of the tortious-interference exposure Harborline assumes by continuing to employ you in a role that requires the use of Argosy confidential information. Harborline is on notice of the operative provisions of your Employment Agreement and of the matters identified in this letter.
I. Background and Operative Provisions
From June 12, 2022 through January 23, 2026, you served Argosy in increasing positions of confidence, most recently as Senior Director of Commercial Operations, Cardiac Rhythm Management. In that role you held responsibility for North American channel strategy, pricing for the Argosy Cadence™ product family, and the integrated key-account plans for the seventeen named accounts identified in Schedule A to your Employment Agreement (the “Restricted Accounts”).
In consideration of your employment, ongoing access to Argosy’s confidential information, the equity awards granted to you under the 2022 and 2024 grant cycles, and your annual cash bonuses (§ 8 of the Employment Agreement), you bound yourself to four post-termination obligations relevant here. Each is reproduced or summarized below; the operative text is enclosed at Exhibit A.
- Section 9 (Non-Competition): for twelve months following separation, no employment with a Competing Business (defined to include Harborline) anywhere in the United States and Canada in any role that involves cardiac rhythm management product strategy, channel management, or key-account pricing.
- Section 10 (Non-Solicitation): for eighteen months following separation, no direct or indirect solicitation of any of the Restricted Accounts, and no solicitation of any Argosy employee with whom you had material contact in the twenty-four months preceding separation.
- Section 11 (Confidentiality): permanent obligation to hold in confidence, and not to use or disclose, Argosy’s Confidential Information and Trade Secrets, including the pricing matrices, contract-renewal pipelines, and product-roadmap memoranda you accessed in the ordinary course of your duties.
- Section 13 (Return of Property): obligation, on or before the separation date, to return all Argosy property and to certify in writing that no Confidential Information remains in your possession in any form, including on personal devices and personal cloud accounts.
II. Specific Breaches Identified
Argosy has identified the following breaches based on documents and information presently in its possession. Argosy reserves the right to identify and assert additional breaches as discovery proceeds.
- Breach of Section 9. On or about February 10, 2026 you joined Harborline as Vice President, Commercial Strategy — CRM. Harborline’s press release of February 11, 2026 (Exhibit B) states that you will lead “North American channel strategy and pricing for our Pulsewave™ CRM portfolio.” Harborline competes directly with Argosy in the cardiac rhythm management category in the United States and Canada. The role described is the role bargained against in Section 9.
- Breach of Section 10. On or about March 4, 2026 you, on Harborline’s behalf, met with the Vice President of Cardiology Service Line at Northshore Cardiology Network, one of the seventeen Restricted Accounts. A contemporaneous internal email of that meeting was forwarded to a former Argosy clinical specialist who has supplied Argosy with a sworn declaration (Exhibit C). The Northshore meeting is a per-se solicitation of a Restricted Account during the eighteen-month non-solicitation period.
- Breach of Section 11. Forensic image review of the Argosy-issued MacBook Pro returned to Argosy on January 26, 2026 (Exhibit D, forensic report) shows the bulk transfer of three hundred and twelve files from /Users/jtomic/ Argosy Work/ to an external drive identified by serial number on January 18, 2026, followed by a syncing event to a personal Dropbox account at 11:42 p.m. Central that same evening. The transferred files include the 2026 North American CRM pricing matrix, the Q1-2026 Cadence™ renewal pipeline, and the “Atlas Roadmap” product memorandum.
- Breach of Section 13. Your separation certification dated January 23, 2026 (Exhibit E) attests that no Confidential Information remained in your possession. Exhibit D establishes that the certification was inaccurate as of the date you signed it.
III. The Restrictive Covenants Are Enforceable on These Facts
Illinois Freedom to Work Act, 820 ILCS 90/. The covenants meet each statutory threshold for enforceability. Your annualized base compensation (exclusive of equity and bonus) was $312,500, well above the $75,000 covenant threshold and the $45,000 non-solicitation threshold prescribed at 820 ILCS 90/10. You received the Employment Agreement for review, and notice that you should consult counsel, fourteen calendar days before signing in 2022 (Exhibit F). 820 ILCS 90/20.
Common-law reasonableness. Under the now-codified Reliable Fire Equipment Co. v. Arredondo, 2011 IL 111871, ¶ 17, 965 N.E.2d 393, 399 (2011) framework, restrictive covenants are enforceable if (1) they are no greater than necessary to protect a legitimate business interest, (2) the temporal and geographic restraints are reasonable, and (3) they do not impose undue hardship on the employee or harm the public. Each prong is met:
- Argosy has near-permanent customer relationships with the Restricted Accounts cultivated over a decade and confidential pricing methodology unknown outside Argosy. Both are recognized legitimate business interests under Reliable Fire and its progeny.
- Twelve and eighteen-month restraints in cardiac rhythm management have been upheld by Illinois courts on materially similar facts. AssuredPartners, Inc. v. Schmitt, 2015 IL App (1st) 141863, ¶ 47, 44 N.E.3d 463, 480.
- You are a senior commercial executive with broad medical-device and adjacent vertical opportunities outside cardiac rhythm management. Hardship is not undue.
Federal trade-secret protection. The pricing matrices, renewal pipeline, and Atlas Roadmap qualify as trade secrets under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1839(3). The forensic transfer to a personal Dropbox account is a misappropriation under 18 U.S.C. § 1839(5). Argosy is entitled to the extraordinary remedies of the DTSA, including civil seizure under 18 U.S.C. § 1836(b)(2), exemplary damages under § 1836(b)(3)(C), and attorney’s fees under § 1836(b)(3)(D), upon a finding of willful and malicious misappropriation.
Tortious interference. Harborline’s knowing employment of you in a role that requires the use of Argosy Confidential Information, with knowledge of the restrictive covenants, exposes Harborline to tortious interference with contract and prospective economic advantage liability under HPI Health Care Servs., Inc. v. Mt. Vernon Hosp., Inc., 131 Ill. 2d 145, 154-55, 545 N.E.2d 672, 676 (1989). Punitive damages are available on a clear and convincing showing.
IV. Cure Pathway and Acceptable Cure Terms
Argosy has determined that complete cure is achievable on the schedule below. Argosy will accept full and timely cure in lieu of immediate proceedings. Cure must consist of all of the following, performed concurrently and confirmed in writing under penalty of perjury under 28 U.S.C. § 1746 by you and by an authorized officer of Harborline:
- Withdrawal from prohibited role. Your immediate withdrawal from any role at Harborline (or any other Competing Business) involving cardiac rhythm management product strategy, channel management, or key-account pricing, through January 22, 2027 (twelve months from separation).
- Forensic surrender. Forensic acquisition of the external drive identified at Exhibit D, and of any personal device or personal cloud account that has held Argosy Confidential Information at any time since January 18, 2026, by an independent neutral examiner mutually acceptable to the parties, at your expense, with full chain-of-custody and a final certification of secure deletion.
- Restricted-account quiet period. No direct or indirect contact, in any forum, with any Restricted Account through July 22, 2027 (eighteen months), and your withdrawal from any pending opportunity at any Restricted Account into which you have inserted yourself since separation.
- Affirmative-disclosure undertaking. Disclosure to Argosy of every Restricted Account contact you have had since separation, with date, forum, participants, and substance.
- Stipulated injunction. Execution of the form Stipulated Permanent Injunction with Damages Reservation enclosed at Exhibit G, memorializing the cure terms and giving Argosy summary contempt remedies in the event of future breach.
- Liquidated reimbursement. Payment of $42,500 to Argosy representing the forensic, investigative, and pre-suit attorney’s-fee costs Argosy has incurred to date, supported by the cost ledger at Exhibit H.
Cure is not partial. Anything short of all six items, in the form set out above and within the cure period, will be treated as a refusal to cure and will be the basis for verified-complaint filing.
V. Litigation Hold and Reservation of Rights
Litigation hold. Mr. Tomic and Harborline are placed on notice of a pending dispute and required to preserve, and to instruct each custodian to preserve, all documents and electronically stored information relating to the subject matter of this letter, including but not limited to: emails, Slack messages, Teams chats, and text messages between Mr. Tomic and Harborline personnel from December 1, 2025 to date; Harborline onboarding files for Mr. Tomic; Mr. Tomic’s personal cloud accounts (Dropbox, iCloud, Google Drive, OneDrive); all external drives that have been connected to Mr. Tomic’s personal or Harborline-issued devices; and all CRM, account-planning, and pricing artifacts created by Mr. Tomic at Harborline.
Spoliation will be the basis for an adverse-inference instruction at trial, and may support sanctions under Illinois Supreme Court Rule 219(c) and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 37(e) if matters proceed in federal court.
Reservation of rights. Argosy expressly reserves all rights, claims, and remedies, including the right to seek a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction without further notice if the conduct continues, the right to seek civil seizure under 18 U.S.C. § 1836(b)(2), the right to accelerate equity-vesting clawbacks under Section 8 of the Employment Agreement, and the right to refer this matter for criminal investigation under the federal Economic Espionage Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1832, if the misappropriation pattern expands.
VI. Exhibits Indexed to This Letter
- Exhibit A — Operative text of Sections 9, 10, 11, and 13 of the Employment Agreement
- Exhibit B — Harborline Medical Devices press release, February 11, 2026
- Exhibit C — Sworn declaration regarding Northshore Cardiology meeting
- Exhibit D — Forensic report on Argosy-issued MacBook Pro
- Exhibit E — Separation certification signed January 23, 2026
- Exhibit F — Pre-execution review notice and counsel-consultation acknowledgment
- Exhibit G — Form Stipulated Permanent Injunction with Damages Reservation
- Exhibit H — Pre-suit cost ledger
Argosy values the work you contributed during your tenure and would prefer cure over litigation. The cure pathway above is structured to be feasible, complete, and final. If you or Harborline elect to retain counsel, please direct counsel to contact the undersigned promptly so that we can execute confidentiality undertakings and exchange the operative documents under a litigation-hold-friendly protocol. Counsel for Harborline should likewise be in touch by close of business on May 8, 2026.
We are not willing to extend the cure period absent a confirmed and creditable proposal in writing. Govern yourselves accordingly.
Very truly yours,
Chen-Park Employment Law, LLC
By: ____________________________
Alexandra Chen-Park, Esq.
IL Bar #6311482 · MI Bar P78421
cc: Argosy Surgical Holdings, LLC (client); General Counsel, Harborline Medical Devices, Inc.; matter file
Enclosures: Exhibits A through H (indexed)
Sample only. Names, dates, dollar figures, and the law firm shown above are illustrative. The legal substance, statutory citations, case authority, evidentiary structure, cure framework, and tortious-interference posture shown here reflect how a competent employment attorney drafts a real notice of breach with right to cure on a restrictive covenant matter governed by Illinois law.