SAN DIEGO — A district courted granted a company’s request in asking a former employee to pay its legal fees and to hand over documents for a competing company.
In the case at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California, William Andreoli v. Youngevity International Inc., et al., Andreoli sued Youngevity for violating California’s competition laws, conversion, and breach of contract, while the company denied allegations and requested a set of documents from Andreoli.
Andreoli sold a series of entities to Youngevity in the summer of 2011 with terms including an obligation to pay a $2-million mortgage for a commercial building in Windham, New Hampshire, according to a court document.
Because Youngevity was not able to make the mortgage payments at the time of purchase, a new contract with new rules outlining a separate closing date, until the property could be financed, was formed, it said.
Andreoli became the president of Youngevity until Nov. 30, 2015, when the company allegedly coerced him into signing documents that changed their original agreement, leaving him with the burden of paying for the commercial building’s mortgage, the document said.
Meanwhile, Youngevity claimed that Andreoli had sold his company because it was struggling financially and that its purchase of the commercial building would be final after a few conditions were made, and William never met them, it said.
According to case notes, during Andreoli’s time of employment at Youngevity, he allowed businesses to operate out of the New Hampshire office space, controlled distributor accounts without Youngevity’s consent and worked with the company’s top level executives to form Wakaya Perfection L.L.C.—a competitor to Youngevity.
William became Wakaya’s president on June 1, 2016.
Youngevity requested a list of documents from Andreoli that details his work with Wakaya. U.S. Magistrate Judge Jill L. Burkhardt ordered for Andreoli to hand over the documents except for those that do not have relevance to the case. Andreoli is also ordered to pay Youngevity’s legal fees.