Saving Seafood

National Fish, Tampa Bay resolve trade secrets case

March 11, 2019 –A federal judge dismissed National Fish & Seafood’s (NFS) trade secrets case against Tampa Bay Fisheries, its parent company Red Chamber, and former employee Kathleen Scanlon after the companies agreed to resolve the lawsuit.

Pacific Andes-owned NFS and Tampa Bay “jointly announce that they have satisfactorily resolved the lawsuit brought by NFS against Tampa Bay, Kathleen Scanlon, Red Chamber Co., and certain individuals affiliated with Tampa Bay,” the companies said in a statement provided to SeafoodSource.

As a result of the confidential settlement, all claims will be dismissed, NFS and Tampa Bay said.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Judge sets deadlines in fish espionage case

March 5, 2019 — The opposing sides in the industrial espionage lawsuit filed by National Fish & Seafood against a Florida competitor have spent much of the past two months wrangling over discovery and a federal judge has set deadlines that could end the squabbling and allow the case to move forward.

U.S. District Court Judge M. Page Kelly on Friday acceded to requests from Gloucester-based National Fish and Florida-based Tampa Bay Fisheries and other defendants to extend the deadlines for discovery.

Kelly, who sits in federal court in Boston, set March 15 as the deadline for all written fact discovery and April 15 for the close of all fact discovery.

In its lawsuit, National Fish claims that executives at Florida-based Tampa Bay Fisheries encouraged and conspired with Kathleen A. Scanlon, a former National Fish employee, to copy “substantial volumes of NFS’ confidential business information and trade secrets”  in her final days at National Fish before she started a position with Tampa Bay Fisheries.

Scanlon, who rose to chief of research and development and quality control in her 23 years at National Fish, denies the allegations, as do the other Tampa Bay executives named as defendants.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

Trial date set in case of clam espionage

November 7, 2018 — The federal trial between Gloucester-based National Fish and Seafood and the Florida-based seafood processing competitor it accuses of corporate espionage now is not expected to commence until at least midway through 2019.

U.S. District Court Judge Leo T. Sorokin on Monday set next July 22 as the opening trial date in the lawsuit between National Fish and competitor Tampa Bay Fisheries of Dover, Florida.

In the lawsuit, initially filed last July, National Fish accuses Tampa Bay Fisheries of hiring away Kathleen A. Scanlon, a 23-year employee at National Fish, and using her to help steal recipes, client information and other trade secrets on her way out the door from the Gloucester company.

The order by Sorokin, who sits in the U.S. District Court in Boston, also established the discovery schedule for the trial and set a status conference with attorneys from both sides for the afternoon of April 17.

If Sorokin’s trial date holds, the trial will begin almost exactly one year since the the intellectual property battle between the two seafood processing competitors burst into the public consciousness.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times

National Fish & Seafood sues former employee

July 25, 2018 — Care for a side order of alleged corporate espionage with your stuffed clams? Belly on up to the bar.

As in the legal bar.

Gloucester-based National Fish & Seafood is accusing its former head of research, development and quality assurance of absconding with confidential processing information and other corporate trade secrets when she resigned recently to take a similar position with a Florida-based seafood competitor.

In a civil lawsuit filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Boston, NFS alleges Kathleen A. Scanlon, who worked at NFS for more than 20 years before resigning about two weeks ago, used company-issued equipment to help steal confidential recipe, processing and customer information as a means of assisting her new employer, Tampa Bay Fisheries Inc. of Dover, Florida.

The suit also names Tampa Bay Fisheries as a co-defendant, along with an unnamed John Doe at Tampa Bay Fisheries who allegedly helped hatch the plan.

Officials at Tampa Bay Fisheries did not respond to phone calls Monday seeking comment.

Read the full story at the Gloucester Daily Times