Genomeweb | Human Longevity (HLI) is suing the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI)
and a number of unknown defendants over the misappropriation and use of
trade secrets passed along by Craig Venter, the founder of both the
company and the institute that bears his name.
In a complaint
filed last Friday with the US District Court for the Southern District
of California, Human Longevity alleges that upon his termination from
HLI on May 24, Venter took a company-owned laptop with trade secrets and
passed on protected information to the Venter Institute, of which he is
chairman and CEO. HLI also claims that the institute is working on a
product that will compete with its own business.
According to the complaint, Venter was CEO of Human Longevity from
2014 until January 2017, when he became the firm's executive chairman
and signed a "proprietary information and inventions" agreement. He
assumed the role of interim CEO in November of 2017 until his employment
was terminated in May of this year. During his time at HLI, Venter used
a company-owned laptop computer, the contents of which were backed up
in the cloud, and consistently used his JCVI email address rather than
his HLI email to conduct company business, the complaint states.
In
the spring of this year, Venter "withheld critical information from the
board and the HLI investors regarding the conduct of an HLI key
executive which would likely result in termination," the complaint says.
Further, in May, Venter had an HLI-paid counsel "draft a
Venter-favorable employment contract" and appointed a new interim
president without conferring with the HLI board first.
On May 24,
the HLI board "considered a rushed investor deal which Venter presented
to them only less than two weeks earlier," the terms of which the board
considered one-sided. The deal would have provided financial incentives
to Venter and offered the new investor rights that had already been
granted to another party, according to the complaint. "At that point,
the HLI board voted to terminate Venter from HLI," it states.
Following
his termination, Venter left the HLI offices with the company-owned
laptop and "immediately began using the HLI computer and server to
communicate to the public, solicit HLI investors and employees," the
complaint says. In a Twitter message on May 24, Venter said that he was retiring from HLI and returning to JCVI.
His
access to the HLI server and HLI emails was disabled the next day, but
the company alleges that "even after his HLI termination, Venter used
the HLI computer, accessed and sent HLI proprietary information and
trade secrets," including communications involving Series C and Asia JV
Series A documents.
