DEFENDANTS TIME IS RUNNING OUT!!
The defendants have called this a "garden variety" business dispute, but Judge Oetken thinks otherwise.
"Based on CMG’s allegations, this case may present a rare occasion where punitive damages may potentially be justified," he writes. "CMG alleges that Defendants engaged in a comprehensive scheme over the course of five years to deprive XA of its profits and clients by working as executive officers for XA while simultaneously running separate businesses that fraudulently competed with XA... Given the chutzpah with which Defendants allegedly executed their schemes, the Court finds that the request for punitive damages is sufficient to survive the motion to dismiss."
Chutzpah - "insolence", "cheek" or "audacity". Wikipedia
Joseph Wagner, Darren Andereck, Jean Wilson, Jessie Lomma, Michael Day and Remegio Gudin.
Judge Oetken examines whether the plaintiff has adequately alleged predicate acts and a pattern of racketeering activity. Here, the alleged predicate acts are mail and wire fraud. Oetken points to emails among Wilson, Wagner and Andereck informing a bank and clients that Studio AG — i.e. the alleged entity set up by the defendants to cater to XA — was a part of XA. He also looks at the allegations pertaining to HudsonGray.
HudsonGray, Wagner, Andereck, Lomma, Day, Wilson, and Gudin— were part of a scheme to defraud. : text messages describing how the HudsonGray Defendants would tell XA clients that HudsonGray was the same company as XA, just using a different name; a text message from Gudin to a temporary XA employee informing them that HudsonGray is the same [as XA] with a different name'; the porting of proprietary XA data and information to new iPhones possessed by the HudsonGray Defendants and unattached to XA’s server; and HudsonGray receiving payment for a project developed by and belonging to XA."
