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We previously wrote about ex-Google engineer Anthony Levandowski, the former head of Google’s self-driving division, who was charged criminally for misappropriation of trade secrets prior to his departure from Google. Levandowski ultimately pleaded guilty to stealing a confidential document related to Google’s self-driving technology. Levandowski’s attorneys had requested that he be let off without any prison time, arguing that a year of home confinement, a fine, restitution, and community service would be sufficient punishment for his crime. The federal government had asked for a prison sentence of twenty-seven months. The judge chose not to accept either proposed sentence and instead handed down an 18-month prison sentence to Levandowski.

In handing down his sentence, US District Judge William Alsup said that a sentence without imprisonment would give “a green light to every future brilliant engineer to steal trade secrets.” Levandowski was originally charged with 33 counts of stealing trade secrets in connection with Levandowski’s downloading thousands of documents to his personal laptop before leaving Google to work on his own self-driving startup, Otto, which was later acquired by Uber in August 2016 for a reported $680 million. As part of his plea deal, Levandowski admitted to stealing one document called “Chauffeur TL weekly updates,” which tracked the progress of Google’s “Project Chauffeur” that later became Google’s self-driving division, Waymo. According to reports, Judge Alsup described the stolen document as a “competitor’s game plan” and called Levandowski’s theft the “biggest trade secret crime I have ever seen.” In exchange for pleading guilty to this one charge, the government agreed to drop the other charges against Levandowski. Continue reading ›

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Best-Chicago-Business-Dispute-Lawyer-300x189A manufacturer of electrical connectors for automobiles sued another manufacturer and several competitors alleging theft of trade secrets. The plaintiff alleged that it had a contract to supply connectors to Bosch for use in cars manufactured by General Motors. After several years of performance under the contract, the manufacturer alleged that Bosch passed its designs off to its competitors in an effort to find a company to manufacture the required connectors at a cheaper price. The manufacturer sued in Illinois, but the district court found that it lacked jurisdiction over the case because the alleged theft did not take place in Illinois, and the fact that the connectors were used in vehicles that were ultimately sold in Illinois car dealerships was too attenuated to support jurisdiction. The 7th Circuit affirmed the decision on appeal.

In 2005, General Motors retained engineering company Bosch to build a “body control module” for some of its cars. A body control module is a computer system that controls certain electronic functions inside a car, like its locks and its power windows. To build the body control module, Bosch required a “183-pin connector,” an electrical adapter that can connect 183 electrical circuits. Bosch turned to Illinois company J.S.T. Corporation for the task. J.S.T. accepted the contract and designed and built for Bosch a 183-pin connector. J.S.T.’s connectors performed well and Bosch retained J.S.T. as its sole supplier of connectors for years. Continue reading ›

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Layoffs have become commonplace in the COVID-19 era as employers are forced to trim staff levels amid shelter-in-place orders. Many of these employers intend to rehire their former employees when the economy picks back up. Employers should be aware, however, of the impact, these gaps in employment can have on the enforceability of non-compete agreements and other restrictive covenants the employer and employee may have previously entered into.

The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the First Circuit recently considered a similar situation and ultimately held that the employer could not enforce a non-compete agreement against a former employee that had been fired and then rehired. The legal saga started when Novo Nordisk, a pharmaceutical company, sought entry of a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction against Thomas Russomano, one of its former employees, seeking to enforce the terms of a confidentiality and non-compete agreement that Russomano signed when he began his employment with Novo Nordisk. The District Court denied Novo Nordisk’s motion because it found that Novo Nordisk failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits, a necessary requirement to obtain injunctive relief.

Russomano began his employment with Novo Nordisk in January 2016. As a condition of his employment, he signed confidentiality and non-compete agreement which prohibited him from working for a competitor during his employment and for a period of twelve months following the end of his employment. In October 2016, Novo Nordisk informed Russomano that his position was being eliminated, and he was terminated in mid-November. After an approximately three-week period, the company rehired Russomano to another position. Russomano signed second confidentiality and non-compete upon being rehired. Continue reading ›

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When workers get sued by their employer for breaching their employment contract, it’s fairly common for the workers to argue that the contract was invalid, but it’s less common for them to claim their signature on the contract was forged. That’s what Eric M. Frieman said when USI Insurance Services, LLC, sued him for allegedly stealing clients away from Wells Fargo to work with his new employer, RCM&D Self-Insured Services Inc., otherwise known as SISCO.

Frieman started working for Wells Fargo Insurance Services USA Inc. in 2008 as an employee benefits producer. In 2010, he signed an employment contract with Wells Fargo that included clauses that forbade him from working for a competitor and/or soliciting clients from Wells Fargo to switch to his new employer.

But when Frieman left Wells Fargo in 2016 to go work for RCM&D, he allegedly actively solicited 18 clients he had served while working at Wells Fargo and invited them to switch over to RCM&D, which they did. USI purchased Wells Fargo in 2017 and they are named as the main plaintiffs in the non-compete lawsuit against Frieman.

Rather than denying that the employment contract he signed with Wells Fargo is valid, Frieman claimed that he had never signed the document and that his signature had been forged. He insisted he only has one signature and that the signature above his name on his employment contract with Wells Fargo does not match his signature. Continue reading ›

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When one party sues another over a business dispute, not only does the defendant deny the allegations, but it’s also common for the defendant to countersue, meaning they bring their own allegations against the individual or entity suing them. After Turner “Tfue” Tenney, a professional esports player, sued FaZe Clan, a professional esports organization, FaZe Clan turned around and sued Tenny for allegedly breaching his contract with them and denying them a portion of the income he earned from streaming.

The legal dispute started in May of 2019 when Tenney sued FaZe for allegedly operating as an unlicensed agency, blocking Tenney from various business opportunities, and taking up to 80% of the income Tenney earned.

Tenney claimed that, by allegedly operating as an unlicensed agency, FaZe had violated the California Talent Agency Act (TTA), which prohibits unlicensed agents from managing talent in the state of California. Tenney used this as his basis for asking the court to rule that his contract with FaZe was invalid because it went against California law, but FaZe argued that it hadn’t managed Tenney in the state of California, and so their contract was not subject to California law.

Tenney also alleged FaZe had breached the Gamer Agreement between Tenney and the company by failing to pay an agreed-upon fee of $2,000 per month. FaZe did pay the fee eventually, but Tenney alleged the payments were so late as to render the contract invalid. Continue reading ›

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IMG_6355_3-300x189The FTC and the State of Ohio sued a third party payment processor that engaged in processing payments for third party merchants engaged in deceptive practices and consumer fraud, as well as telemarketers in violation of the FTC Act, the TSR, and the Ohio CSPA.

The Federal Trade Commission and the State of Ohio filed a complaint seeking a permanent injunction and other equitable relief against Madera Merchant Services and B&P Enterprises. The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas issued a temporary restraining order, asset freeze, and other equitable relief, as well as an order to show cause why a permanent injunction should not be issued.

Madera Merchant Services and B&P Enterprises operate a third-party processing scheme that uses remotely created payment orders or remotely created checks to withdraw money from consumers’ accounts on behalf of third-party merchants. Madera and B&P routinely withdrew funds from consumers for merchants that were engaged in fraud or deceptive marketing. The district court stated that the defendants also routinely provided payment processing services to telemarketers in violation of the TSR, which expressly prohibits collecting payments in connection with telemarketing sales. Continue reading ›

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Lubin_FB_1-large-300x115A railroad switch carrier sued a railroad operator alleging that the operator took advantage of its position as a majority shareholder in a joint venture to force the joint venture company to agree to a contract with atrocious and unfair terms. The switch carrier alleged that the contract forced the joint venture company to pay 3.5x the fair market value of rent for use of railroad tracks, as well as turn over its assets to the railroad operator. The plaintiff sued, but the district court found that the company’s claims were preempted by federal statutes. On appeal, the 7th Circuit found that the plaintiff had failed to develop several of the arguments that it advanced in the district court. The appellate panel found that there was no excuse for this error because the plaintiff and defendant were both sophisticated litigants. The panel determined that the plaintiff had waived its arguments as a result.

Canadian Pacific Railway owns 49% of Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad Company while Consolidated Rail Corporation owns 51%. Two other defendants, Norfolk Southern Corporation and CSX Corporation, indirectly own Consolidated Rail. Norfolk Southern and CSX each control two directors on Indiana Harbor’s seven-person board. Indiana Harbor operates as a switch carrier on tracks owned by Consolidated Rail and its parent companies near Chicago.

The railroads managed their arrangement with a 99-year contract executed in 1906 between Indiana Harbor and the previous owners of the tracks. Though the agreement expired in 2006, for seven years between 1999 and 2006, Consolidated Rail stopped paying expenses and invoicing Indiana Harbor for rent. This quid pro quo cessation lasted through the expiration of the agreement and into the extended negotiations over a new trackage rights contract. Continue reading ›

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The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted all kinds of businesses all over the world, but small businesses have been hit the hardest. Many business owners pay for business insurance to help them cover the costs of doing business when they can’t do business, or to cover the costs of litigation if they get sued.

But this pandemic has put so many small businesses out of business, even if just temporarily, those insurers have been flooded with claims – and when insurers get flooded with claims, they usually look for excuses to avoid paying all those claims.

Hiscox is a major insurance company that specializes in selling business insurance to small business owners, often directly over the internet without the aid of an insurance broker. When many of those policyholders tried to file claims with Hiscox for business disruption, Hiscox allegedly claimed the pandemic is not covered under the terms of their business disruption insurance policy.

In response to the insurance company’s refusal to pay up, almost 350 policyholders came together to form the Hiscox Action Group. Mishcon de Reya, a law firm based in London, has been hired to represent Hiscox Action Group and they quickly entered into arbitration against Hiscox over the unpaid business disruption insurance claims.

Hiscox is not the only insurance company refusing to pay small business owners for the losses they have suffered as a result of COVID-19. Seven other insurance companies, along with Hiscox, are taking part in a UK court test case to determine whether insurers can be made to pay business disruption claims in the wake of COVID-19. Continue reading ›

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Back in January of 2012, the City of Westland Police and Fire Retirement System filed a class-action lawsuit against MetLife Inc. They alleged that the insurance company used data from the Social Security Administration’s “Death Master File” (DMF) to determine when to stop paying annuities to deceased policyholders, but allegedly did not use the same database to determine when to pay out life insurance policies or the Retained Asset Account, although it could have easily done so.

The insurance company also allegedly failed to include data from the DMF regarding its pending payouts in its quarterly reports to its shareholders, thereby underreporting to its investors the amount of money it would have to pay out to policyholders and overestimating its quarterly profits. This withholding of information made MetLife’s investors think the company had less money in outgoing payouts than it actually had, which allegedly resulted in MetLife maintaining stock prices that were artificially high – as soon as the information was made public, the insurance company’s stock prices allegedly dropped and the plaintiffs of the lawsuit allege they suffered financial damages.

Despite the fact that regulators had looked into the insurance company’s alleged misuse (or at least misreporting) of the data contained in the DMF, MetLife also allegedly failed to disclose to its shareholders the fact that regulators were investigating the insurance company’s misuse of the DMF. Continue reading ›

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MG_6325_1-300x200The FTC sued a student loan debt relief company that promised consumers that it would reduce their monthly student loan payments, or arrange for their student debts to be forgiven in whole or part by their student loan servicers. Instead, the company kept most of the money sent to them by the consumers and failed to negotiate with the servicers or remit the payments in a timely fashion. The district court granted summary judgment to the FTC and issued a permanent injunction against the defendants, as well as a monetary judgment for more than $27 million in restitution.

The United States District Court for the Central District of California granted summary judgment to the Federal Trade Commission in a suit filed against Elegant Solutions, Inc. The FTC filed a complaint against Elegant Solutions for a permanent injunction and other equitable relief pursuant to § 13(b) and 19 of the Federal Trade Commission Act and 57(b) of the Telemarketing and Consumer Fraud and Abuse Prevention Act.

The FTC’s complaint charged that the defendants participated in acts or practices that violated § 5(a) of the FTC Act by representing in advertising that consumers who purchased the defendants’ debt relief services would be enrolled in a repayment plan that would reduce their monthly payments on their student loans to a lower, specific amount, or have their student loan balances forgiven in whole or part; that most or all of the consumers’ monthly payments to the defendants would be applied toward consumers’ student loans; and that the defendants would assume responsibility for the servicing of consumers’ student loans. The district court found that, in numerous instances in which the defendants made such representations, they were false or not substantiated. The panel determined that these representations constituted a deceptive act or practice in violation of § 5(a) of the FTC Act. Continue reading ›

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