A former Mavidea manager being sued for allegedly stealing customers from his old employer has fired back and denied the claims, contending you wouldn’t need proprietary information to poach business.
Mavidea, a technology firm based in Bloomington, claims it suffered at least $2.7 million in damages as a result of Jamie Warmbir’s actions. Warmbir, his wife, and new company Warmbir IT Solutions are accused of violating state and federal trade-secrets law and civil conspiracy.
In a new response filed Tuesday, Warmbir denied the bulk of the allegations.
When Warmbir left Mavidea in February, “competing IT businesses could identify Mavidea’s customers by conducting internet searches, mass mailings, reviewing phone books or online directories,” wrote his lawyer, A. Christopher Cox. “The identity of Mavidea’s customers were readily ascertainable by any individual in the IT industry through proper means without access to Mavidea’s customer list.”
Warmbir admitted he kept a record of the names of “some of Mavidea’s customers” when he resigned. And he admitted “that certain customers of Mavidea terminated their contracts with Mavidea and became clients of Warmbir IT Solutions, LLC.”
But Warmbir denied that the “identity, pricing terms, contract lengths and services included for each customer” was proprietary. Cox argued they “do not constitute trade secrets.”
The federal lawsuit, filed in April, remains pending. The deadline for discovery in the case is set for July 15.
