Citigroup, Inc (NYSE: C) has filed suit against Gautam Hazarika, a former director in its global markets unit, alleging that he released confidential trade secrets to Deutsche Bank (NYSE: DB) before joining the bank, according to a new Business Week report.

The suit accused Hazarika of a flagrant breach of contract with Citigroup by accusing him of sending trade secrets to Deutsche Bank and Standard Chartered Plc, as well as his personal emial account.

The news of the suit comes on the heels of a 2009 suit from Bank of America Corp (NYSE: BAC)'s Merrill Lynch division for allegedly raiding its bankers and misappropriating trade secrets.

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By: Eli Segall

Silicon Valley lawyers who specialize in this area of law say trade secret cases are on the rise. The improved economy, they say, has led to more people switching jobs and more people getting accused of stealing valuable, confidential information from their old offices.

Roberta Hayashi, head of the litigation department and employment practice group at San Jose-based Berliner Cohen, is one such lawyer. Hayashi said she's now involved with six trade secret cases, compared with only one between the fall of 2008 and mid-2009, when the economy was near bottom.

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By: Mike Masnick

Silvaco Data Systems lost its argument that Intel and others could be found liable for violating Silvaco's trade secrets, because those companies purchased software from another company who had violated Silvaco's trade secrets.

The quick background is that another company -- Circuit Semantics Inc., (CSI) -- has apparently used trade secrets from Silvaco in creating its software. Silvaco won its lawsuit against Circuit Semantics, barring further sale of its code. Silvaco then sued buyers of CSI's code, including Intel, claiming that they, via CSI, had also violated Silvaco's trade secrets.

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By: MATTHEW FUTTERMAN

Two talent-agency heavyweights specializing in sports and entertainment stars are locked in a battle over business poaching, with a fight that's spilling into public view in federal court.

IMG says it is suing to mitigate the damage from the loss of trade secrets and proprietary information. "If they want to be in the businesses we are in they should start their own," said Jim Gallagher, a spokesman for Cleveland-based IMG. "They can't hire our junior agents in an attempt to steal our clients, our trade secrets and our clients' confidential information."

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By: Marcia Savage, Site Editor
SearchFinancialSecurity.com

It's a nightmare scenario for any enterprise: An employee, a trusted insider, steals the company's most sensitive data, its trade secrets. For Societe Generale, the nightmare may have become a reality after the bank discovered that proprietary code used in its high-frequency trading system was apparently stolen. A former trader who worked in the bank's New York office allegedly pilfered the code last year before quitting.

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By: PRWeb

Pursuant to Case # BC424826 filed in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles, Central District, Ivera Medical's amended complaint alleges that Amsino and Hospira misappropriated Ivera's trade secrets relating to the design of a disinfecting cap, both by the unauthorized disclosure of those trade secrets and by the use of Ivera's trade secrets to develop Hospira's EffectIV™ Disinfecting Cap. Hospira, Inc. is the marketer, distributor and owner of the EffectIV™ Disinfecting Cap. Amsino imports the EffectIV™ Disinfecting Cap for Hospira from China.

Ivera is seeking monetary damages and an injunction halting Hospira and Amsino's ability to manufacture and distribute the EffectIV™ Disinfecting Cap.

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By: Suzanne Bohan
Contra Costa Times

An Alameda County jury ruled in favor of Lawrence Livermore National Security, or LLNS, in a trial alleging it stole trade secrets from a Bay Area inventor, according to a statement released Monday.

LLNS runs Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, which helps manage the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and engages in multidisciplinary research under contract with the Department of Energy.

An April 2008 lawsuit by Bay Area inventor Victor Kley alleged that laboratory employees co-opted a nanotechnology process Kley invented for creating an extremely hard diamond capsule that could be used in the fusion chamber of the National Ignition Facility. Specifically, Gary Gwilliam, the Oakland attorney representing Kley, asserted the lab engaged in theft of trade secrets and violations of a nondisclosure agreement.

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Townsend and Townsend and Crew LLP
By: Richard Grossman

In a comprehensive analysis of the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (Civil Code §3426 et seq.) ("CUTSA"), the California Court of Appeal recently determined that a seller's unauthorized use of trade secrets in the creation of its product does not impose liability for misappropriation of the trade secrets on those who merely purchase and use the product, even if the purchasers were on notice of the alleged trade secret theft.

In Silvaco Data Systems v. Intel Corporation1, the alleged trade secret was Silvaco's source code for computer applications used to design and simulate electronic circuits and systems. In prior litigation, Silvaco had obtained a judgment against Circuit Semantics, Inc. ("CSI"), a competitor that had misappropriated Silvaco's source code and used it to create a competing software product.

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By: Stacy Feldman

Scientists and ocean advocates stepped up warnings this week of potential dangers from chemical dispersants, as oil giant BP released unprecedented amounts of a classified and toxic chemical to thin the Gulf of Mexico oil slick before it reaches shore.

"Unfortunate recent events in the Gulf Coast have once again brought to the forefront issues pertaining to the impacts of dispersants and dispersed oil," Carys Mitchelmore, a researcher at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, told the Senate Subcommittees on Oversight and Water and Wildlife.

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By: R. Robin McDonald
Fulton County Daily Report

Hundreds of pages of court documents unsealed by U.S. District Judge Charles A. Pannell after he vacated a $37 million trade secrets verdict won by Lockheed Martin last year reveal that the company withheld internal corporate e-mails from the court that may have contradicted testimony of its witnesses.

Pannell issued an order unsealing the documents on April 13 after an inquiry by the Fulton County Daily Report, which had sought access to a dozen court pleadings and more than 100 exhibits that Lockheed and Greenville, Texas-based defendant L-3 Communications Integrated Systems had filed under seal.

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By: Steven Oberbeck

The Utah Supreme Court has given new life to a lawsuit by a Texas company that claims PacifiCorp pilfered its trade secrets and used them to concoct it own winning bid for the Currant Creek power plant near Mona.

Dallas-based USA Power filed a lawsuit in late 2005 seeking up to $500 million in damages from PacifiCorp., only to have 3rd District Court Judge Tyrone Medley rule in PacifiCorp's favor prior to the case going to trial.

Utah's highest court, though, overturned the lower court's decision. And that means USA Power's lawsuit is back on.

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By: Robert Willens

C&F Packing won its trade secret case against Pizza Hut last year, but found out the hard way that settlements related to trade-secret misappropriation are taxed as ordinary income.

Last year, the shareholders of C&F Packing Co. found themselves on the winning side of a trade secret settlement. Unfortunately, the shareholders also got handed a tax bill along with the award. Once again, a tax court ruling underscores a lesson corporations still fail to remember: that certain payouts received as a result of a lawsuit are treated as ordinary income for tax purposes.

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By: Dan Levi
The Recorder

A jury already gave the government a gut shot in its high profile espionage prosecution against two Silicon Valley engineers.

On Friday, Northern District of California Judge James Ware fired one right into the heart of the case, throwing out two economic spying counts on which the jury had hung. The only charge remaining is for trade secret theft.

The Justice Department has been vocal about blocking technology leaks to foreign governments, especially China.

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By: Richard C. Darwin and Erin Welsh
Computerworld

Social networking sites are changing the way people interact, socially and professionally. Sites like Facebook and LinkedIn let people establish relationships and store information on their contacts.

When effectively used and managed, these sites can significantly increase the productivity of salespeople and other revenue-generating employees. But the use of these social networking sites by employees to manage their business contacts can also have implications when those employees leave to join a competitor.

Client lists and customer databases are frequently alleged to be trade secrets. If an employee has used a client list to build a network of links and/or contacts on Facebook or LinkedIn , does that list lose its trade secret status?

By Steven Oberbeck

The Utah Supreme Court has given new life to a lawsuit by a Texas company that claims PacifiCorp pilfered its trade secrets and used them to concoct it own winning bid for the Currant Creek power plant near Mona.

Dallas-based USA Power filed a lawsuit in late 2005 seeking up to $500 million in damages from PacifiCorp., only to have 3rd District Court Judge Tyrone Medley rule in PacifiCorp's favor prior to the case going to trial.

Utah's highest court, though, overturned the lower court's decision. And that means USA Power's lawsuit is back on.

To read the complete article from The Salt Lake Tribune, click here.