A previous colleague of mine whom I was friends with left the company in bad terms with our boss. He is now working at one of our competitors. He recently asked to meet up with me for a catch up.
Is there anything I should be aware of before meeting him? e.g. should I try to keep it as secretive as possible?
Unless you work for some government intelligence agency, your employer has no control rights on your private life.
This means you can meet whoever you want outside office hours and talk about any topic you want, as long as you don't disclose sensitive information to any other person.
If the person should ask you about job, stay high level and don't tell more info than what you know has been made public on mass media. Avoid sharing office gossip or other organizational info, like managers who changed position or department reorganizations.
As he is working for a competitor, just be careful to not disclose confidential information. I would advise to not advertise the meeting you are having with him.
There is nothing wrong being friends with someone who works for the competitor, and it should not be your company's business.
Your friend might want to sound you out for whether you could be tempted by switching to his current employer. While this generally is not illegal or even immoral, your current company would probably not approve.
Meet up, but don't tell your current employer. Should they somehow find out and demand an explanation, stating that the meeting was entirely private should close the matter. Depending on whether they believe that answer, this could potentially sour the relationship in the short term or possibly even permanently.
You are the only person who can evaluate whether this meet-up is worth the potential risk/reward.
If it was me, I would meet. You two guys were friends and connecting with people is mostly a good thing.
This might very well be an attempt to recruit you to his company, or an attempt and gathering information. However I would not assume a nefarious context. I would assume that he misses a respected colleague. He might also be seeking info on coming back to your company. Who knows!
I might rehearse some lines to say if information or questions hit a bit close to home. He might want to innocently want to bash your boss, but I would ask him not to as you still have to work there.
I would also not advertise this to anyone in your company. Bosses are human and can easily become jealous or threatened.
