February 20, 2015 – Crosby & Higgins LLP Prevails on Motion to Dismiss; Resolves $20 Million Claim for Breach of Non-Disclosure Agreement
February 20, 2015
Crosby and Higgins LLP has successfully defeated a motion to dismiss pending in the New York State Supreme Court County of New York Commercial Division on behalf of one of its clients, Affinity LLC, preserving the claim for breach of contract arising out of a non-disclosure agreement entered into during multi-million dollar acquisition discussions with GfK Mediamark Research & Intelligence LLC (“GfK MRI”) a major media and consumer research company in the United States (Affinity LLC vs. GfK Mediamark Research & Intelligence LLC (651410/2013) (MLS)). As set forth in the complaint, Affinity alleged that GfK MRI stole Affinity’s trade secrets and confidential business information under cover of a potential acquisition, and subsequently schemed to unfairly compete with Affinity, resulting in the destruction of Affinity’s business. In denying the motion to dismiss with respect to the breach of the non-disclosure agreement, the court noted that GfK MRI announced its competing product a mere eight days after it broke off negotiations with Affinity, and fully launched it approximately seven months later. Based on this, the court held that “such temporal proximity between these events and the discontinuance of the negotiations with Affinity gives rise to a plausible inference that GfK used Affinity’s confidential information in breach of the contract.” The full decision is available at Affinity LLC v. GfK Mediamark Research & Intelligence, LLC, (651410/2013) (MLS) 2013 WL 5958391 (2013).
Subsequently, the parties entered into discovery, after which Affinity LLC filed a motion for leave to amend seeking to add claims for tortious interference, theft of trade secrets and unfair competition arising out of GfK MRI’s alleged actions to induce numerous Affinity customers and vendors to breach their contracts with Affinity by providing GfK MRI with access to Affinity’s proprietary data and confidential information. Thereafter, the parties entered into a settlement resolving any and all disputes between them and the action was discontinued with prejudice.