SAN FRANCISCO – A San Francisco social media game developer alleges two former employees and a Culver City business unlawfully used confidential information.
Zynga Inc. filed a complaint on Nov. 29 in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Scopely Inc., Massimo Maietti and Ehud Barlach alleging misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of written contract and other counts.
According to the complaint, the plaintiff alleges that it discovered that its former senior level game designer, defendant Maietti, prior to exiting from his job with plaintiff and working for defendant Scopely, had breached his contractual obligation by downloading ten confidential files into his USB device. The suit states that further analysis revealed Maietti took more than 14,000 files and approximately 26 gigabytes of confidential information.
The suit states that Barlach also was a former employee of the plaintiff that also accepted a position with the defendant. The plaintiff alleges that Barlach helped solicit Zynga employees for the defendant. The plaintiff holds Scopely Inc., Maietti and Barlach responsible because the defendants allegedly failed to fulfill their obligations under their confidentiality agreements.
The plaintiff requests a trial by jury and seeks judgment against defendants, injunctive relief, compensatory damages, general damages, accounting of profits, restitution or disgorgement, exemplary and punitive damages, interest, attorneys’ fees and costs and further relief as the court may deem proper. It is represented by Darin Snyder of O'Melveny & Myers LLP in San Francisco and Eric Amdursky of O'Melveny & Myers LLP in Menlo Park.
U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California Case number 3:16-cv-06855