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the rights under his agreement with Mr. Mattus; petitioner never
had an agreement with Arnold that would have caused those
relationships and rights to become petitioner’s property. Even
if there had been such an agreement, and the record shows that
there was none, the value of these relationships and rights would
not have become petitioner’s property in toto. In 1974, Mr.
Mattus sought Arnold as his agent to create a substantial
presence for H�agen-Dazs ice cream in supermarkets after Mr.
Mattus had been able to achieve only minimal market penetration
through his own efforts. Mr. Mattus wanted what Arnold had
already created in the 1960's when he operated Arnold’s Ice
Cream--the critical relationships with key supermarket owners and
managers and the marketing know-how necessary to put ice cream
products in supermarket freezers. See, e.g., Coskey’s Television
& Radio Sales & Serv., Inc. v. Foti, 602 A.2d 789, 795 (N.J.
Super. Ct. App. Div. 1992) (“What * * * [the employee] brought to
his employer, he should be able to take away.”). The record
shows that, at most, petitioner had only the benefit of the use
of these assets while Arnold was associated with petitioner--
which contributed heavily to the profitability of petitioner
during the years before the split-off.
Our conclusion that the rights under the oral agreement with
Mr. Mattus, the personal relationships with supermarket owners
and managers and the ice cream distribution expertise, belonged
to Arnold rather than petitioner is confirmed by the disparity
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