Jury Finds Company Trade Secrets Enforceable: $17 Million in Punitive Damages Against Ex-Employees and New Employer

Trade Secret Jury Verdict : Innovative Technologies Corp. v. James Silcott et al. (The Trade Secrets Vault)

The jury awarded $6,475,855.44 in compensatory damages and $17 million in punitive damages in this massive trade secret theft verdict.

The jury found that the salaries of Innovative Technologies employees and its mapping strategies were trade secrets, or that Advanced Management Technologies and Kenton Trace Technologies misappropriated the plaintiff's trade secrets. Jurors found that the plaintiff suffered actual loss proximately caused by the defendants' misappropriation of its trade secrets or that the defendants were unjustly enriched by its misappropriation of the plaintiff's trade secrets.

They found that Advanced Management Technologies acted with purpose to procure contract breaches or terminate the business relationships the plaintiff had with its employees, and that there was no justification for Advanced Management Technologies' conduct. The jury found that Advanced Management Technologies' tortious interference with the plaintiff's business relationship and contracts with its employees was the proximate cause of the damages it suffered. Jurors found that Advanced Management Technologies engaged in a civil conspiracy with the individual defendants or the plaintiff's employees to cause it harm, which was a proximate cause of the plaintiff's damages.

The competing firm, Advanced Management Technology Inc. of Arlington, Va., was ordered to pay virtually all of the damages, Dyer said, having been found guilty of tortious inference with business relationships, civil conspiracy, and theft of trade secrets for acting in collusion with the former employees of Innovative Technologies.

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