ST. LOUIS - HBE Corporation, a well-known financial facilitiesfirm in credit union-land, is suing Clayco Construction over thealleged theft of "trade secrets." At issue is Clayco's newly formedfinancial facilities division, which consists of several formerexecutives from HBE's financial facilities division including TomLombardo who headed division sales; Financial Planner ScottFlorini; Salesperson Bruce Wolferding; Senior Design ArchitectClarence Steele; Graphic Designer/Administrative Assistant MarySmolar; and Chief Operating Officer/Project Developer Paul Barrath.Barrath is the head of the new Clayco Financial Facilities divisionand the other employees will hold similar positions to those atHBE. An article in the St. Louis Business Journal reports that sixother former employees from HBE's financial facilities divisionjoined Clayco individually over a several-month period prior to thegroup's departure. In addition, since February 9 three more HBEexecutives, this time from the health care division, have jumpedship to Clayco. According to the lawsuit, HBE's former financialfacilities executives allegedly "used HBE trade secret informationfrom its sales and marketing database to contact companies thathave signed letters of agreement with HBE." The letters contain anexclusivity clause preventing the client from any business contactwith other companies regarding the project. The suit also claimsthat without an injunction, "HBE will be immediately andirreparably harmed" by loss of client relationships and businessand present and future economic loss. Since 1984 Clayco hasprimarily focused its efforts on callcenters/manufacturing/processing facilities for high-tech and food/beverage industries; sport/entertainment facilities; high-riseluxury condominiums/apartments and office/warehouse distributioncenters exceeding 1.5 million square-feet. Despite the launch ofthe new division, the firm is no stranger to the financial servicesindustry. Most recently, the company built three177,000-square-foot buildings for Citigroup's card division and in2003, completed the design/build of CitiMortgage's515,000-square-foot operations and data center in O'Fallon,Missouri. Clayco also has built numerous call and data centersnationwide. "Clayco has been, is, and will continue to be committedto the credit union industry. The industry is exploding and ClaycoFinancial Facilities will meet the growing demand. Clayco isdisappointed that a lawsuit was filed," said Barrath in a statementreleased to CU Times. "That lawsuit, however, does not changeClayco's commitment to serve the credit union industry. The formerHBE employees now at Clayco did not have non-competition ornon-solicitation agreements with HBE." "Clayco is committed to theethical treatment of its clients, employees and subcontractors andwill continue to serve the needs of the credit union industrywithin the legal guidelines," Barrath continued. "Clayco is alsocommitted to the credit union movement, supporting the nationalorganizations, attending trade shows and conventions, and using ourstaff's 100-plus years of financial experience to assist ourclients and create long-term relationships." The first HBE salvo ofa temporary restraining order and permanent injunction to stopClayco from contacting any individual or business "for the purposeof obtaining financial facilities design/build business" has led tomixed results. An order issued by Judge Bernhardtt Drumm has onlyprevented Clayco from contacting HBE clients that have letters ofagreement with HBE about those specific projects. Clayco may stillgo forward with its banking/credit union division and is permittedto contact those HBE clients about other projects. Barrath, sayshe's looking forward to getting the division off the ground and sofar it's been going well. "This was just a good opportunity tobelong to a very young and progressive company," said Barrath."We'll be at the GAC conference with a booth and we're lookingforward to being out in the marketplace." HBE would not comment onthe lawsuit. HBE also owns and operates the Adam's Mark hotelchain. In addition to a headquarters here, Clayco has full serviceoffices in Chicago, Dallas and [email protected]