Published: March 29, 2010
Deceuninck North America (DNA) Prevails in Trade Secrets Case
MONROE, Ohio - (BUSINESS WIRE) - After a two-week jury trial Deceuninck North America won a $1.158
Million Verdict, plus attorneys' fees, in a trade secrets case
against a former employee and the company he went to work for,
Sensibuilt Building Solutions. Deceuninck North America (DNA) sued the
former vice president of its decking business and the deck manufacturing
company he went to work for, Sensibuilt Building Solutions, for numerous
claims including the misappropriation of trade secrets. When DNA first
learned that the former employee had gone to Sensibuilt, a forensics
review of his work computer ultimately led to the discovery that he had
downloaded more than 2,000 of DNA's most confidential documents onto a
flash drive in the weeks just prior to departing the Company. During
this process the employee also stripped many of those documents of data
that would track their use and subsequently "wiped" clean his home
computer's memory, further impairing discovery.
Through computer forensics, DNA identified the employee's use of key
documents pertaining to the Company's deck trim product which occurred
at the same time the employee was developing a similar deck trim product
for its competitor, Sensibuilt. Additionally, DNA's attorney,
Thompson-Hine of Cincinnati, obtained an adverse inference instruction
regarding spoliation of evidence which allowed the jury to assume that
the employee took the steps he did to conceal evidence. Relying
primarily on an unjust enrichment theory, DNA prevailed on its
misappropriation claims against both the employee and Sensibuilt, as
well as its fiduciary duty and spoliation claims against the employee
himself. DNA was awarded $783,000 in compensatory damages and $375,000
in punitive damages, plus attorneys' fees.
"While I greatly appreciate the jury's verdict, the fact remains that we
will never really know what damage was done our Company," states Mark
Parrish, President and CEO of Deceuninck North America. "Let there be no
doubt, however, that DNA has developed trade secrets of immense
commercial value which established us as the industry leader we are
today, that these secrets are protected under legitimate contracts we
defend tenaciously, and that the financial stability of DNA and our
Belgian parent permit us the resources to do both."
About Deceuninck
Deceuninck North America is part of the Deceuninck Group, an
integrated global organization specializing in compounding, tool
fabrication, design, development, extrusion, finishing of PVC-U window
systems and composite applications for the building industry. The
company is active in more than 75 countries worldwide, has 33
subsidiaries (production and/or sales) and is supported by 2,810
personnel, 660 of whom are in Belgium. In 2008, Deceuninck Group
achieved consolidated sales of 629 million Euros. Deceuninck North
America encompasses fully-integrated design, compounding, tooling,
extrusion and quality assurance disciplines for the production of vinyl
window and door systems and composite applications for the building
industry at its corporate headquarters in Monroe, Ohio.
Deceuninck North America
Charlene Miller, EVP Human Resources,
513-539-5488
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