UKS PREVAILS IN NINTH CIRCUIT APPEAL

UKS Shareholder Richard S. Order secured a victory for InteliClear, LLC, a New Jersey-based provider of software solutions for tracking stock transaction data. 

On October 15, 2020, a unanimous panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed a summary judgment entered by the United States District Court for the Central District of California in Los Angeles in InteliClear, LLC v. ETC Global Holdings, Inc., No. 19-55862

Attorney Order filed claims under the federal Defend Trade Secrets Act and the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act to recover damages from ETC Global for misappropriating InteliClear’s trade secrets to build its own stock-tracking system.  ETC had licensed InteliClear’s system for ten years before terminating the license agreement. 

ETC Global filed a summary judgment motion the day after discovery began, and the district court granted the motion despite InteliClear’s detailed description of its trade secrets and over InteliClear’s argument that discovery was needed to hone its claims further.  The Court of Appeals, however, held that InteliClear had sufficiently disclosed its trade secrets to create a genuine dispute of material fact and that a reasonable jury could find that it had protected its trade secrets through encryption and confidentiality agreements.  In reversing, the Court of Appeals concluded that “the summary judgment granted was precipitous, premature and did not fairly permit development of the issues for resolution.”

As a result, the case is returning to the district court for discovery and trial.