We do not know what his compensation was and what the Ts and Cs of his agreement were. Your scenario is possible but in my view not probable.
The simpler explanation, it seems to me, is that he thought he saw a great opportunity and acted only on his behalf, not Merck's. Being an insider employee, he was exposed to a lot of information particularly because he was working on the SAP. He was a valuable employee. He had the right credentials. He had the right contacts. He understood the regulatory process extremely well. He had the right experience and most importantly success. You don't let go of such a prize with a cavalier....."well, he got an offer he could not refuse.....and we don't believe in standing in the way to indenture employees." The gist of it is that they did not want to keep someone who did not want to stay and probably no longer believed. That to me is equally if not more believable. If what he found while at NWBO was portending to be stellar, assuming he were doing DD on behalf of Merck, why didn't he ask LP to really make him a permanent employee? She definitely would have agreed and so would Merck by the same token as NWBO....that they don't stand in the way of employees seeking better opportunities. Either way, it seems to me that there was nothing compelling enough to keep him at NWBO. And......contrary to the naysayers, he was very valuable to Merck and he was not fired. Quite the contrary.
I don't know about you but this whole thing is very fishy and is beginning to be odiferous.
