Many defendants attempt to defend claims for trade secret
misappropriation by claiming that they never used or disclosed the
information in question. Based on a recent ruling by a federal
district court in New York, however, that may not matter. In
AUA Private Equity Partners, LLC v. Soto, No.
1:17-CV-8035-GHW (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 5, 2018), an employer filed suit
against one of its former employees, asserting claims for trade
secret misappropriation under the Defend Trade Secrets Act
("DTSA"), the federal law enacted in May 2016. The
employer alleged that shortly before her termination, the employee
uploaded files containing confidential and proprietary business
information from her company-issued laptop to her personal cloud
storage account on Google Drive. Following a preliminary injunction
hearing, the employee moved to dismiss the employer's DTSA
claim on grounds that the employer did not allege that she ever
used or disclosed the files, only that she acquired them.
