Empower Pharmacy Accuses Former Executives of Conspiring to Steal Company Secrets

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https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20241220851784/en/Empower-Pharmacy-Accuses-Former-Executives-of-Conspiring-to-Steal-Company-Secrets

"Empower Pharmacy (the “Company”), one of the nation’s leading compound pharmacies and outsourcing facilities, which services patients and clinics across the country, has accused several former executives, and others, of taking part in a conspiracy to brazenly steal valuable trade secrets the group used to set up a competing entity.

The conspiracy took shape among the executives and outside consultants as Empower undertook expansion plans in 2023 to meet the demand for its products, the Company claims in a Second Amended Complaint, filed in Federal Court in Houston. To raise investor cash to fund the expansion, which included new production facilities, Empower produced investor decks highlighting its new business opportunities, financial projections, expense reports, and strategic plans. The former executives, then employed by Empower in key legal and financial positions, copied those documents, the lawsuit alleged.

The masterminds of the alleged conspiracy then set up a new entity whose aim would be to directly compete with Empower, according to the lawsuit.

The Company’s former executives named in the lawsuit are: Matthew Ludowig, Senior General Counsel; David Teer, the Senior Director of Capital Expenditures; Lisa Hudanich, the Capital Expenditures Manager; and Michael Lambert, Director of Regulatory Affairs. After leaving Empower and until about September 2024, Ludowig was a partner at Hanszen Laporte LLP, the law firm representing the defendants. Ludowig now works for Revive RX LLC, a competing compounding pharmacy located in Houston, Texas.

The four conspired with two former executives of CRB Consulting Engineers, it is alleged, which had been retained by Empower to provide design work and risk assessment for the planned new facilities. The former CRB executives named in the lawsuit are Jerry Irwin, CRB’s Senior Project Director, and Marc Hanson, CRB’s Senior Director of Construction Operations Midwest.

The four former Empower employees downloaded and shared trade secrets among each other and their alleged co-conspirators, at times during regularly scheduled Friday morning video calls, it is alleged, before wiping the documents from their company computers. Others involved in the plot wiped their emails from their computers in an attempt to conceal their theft and improper plans, it is alleged.

As the conspiracy advanced and was still unknown to Empower, one by one the executives involved in the scam resigned their positions at the compound pharmacy. It was only after the executives had resigned and Empower undertook an analysis of their computers that the theft and conspiracy were uncovered, court papers reveal.

The lawsuit claiming theft of trade secrets, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, conspiracy, and other civil violations, seeks injunctive relief and unspecified damages."

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https://financialpost.com/pmn/business-wire-news-releases-pmn/empower-pharmacy-accuses-former-executives-of-conspiring-to-steal-company-secrets