Charter Sues to Bar Former Executive From Spilling Trade Secrets to ‘Direct Competitor’
Charter Communications seeks a temporary and preliminary injunction to prevent defendant Bobbie Gilbert, its former director-state government affairs, from continuing to violate her noncompete agreement and misappropriate Charter’s trade secrets, said Charter’s complaint Thursday (docket 6:23-cv-02717) in U.S. District Court for South Carolina in Greenville.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Communications Daily is required reading for senior executives at top telecom corporations, law firms, lobbying organizations, associations and government agencies (including the FCC). Join them today!
Gilbert was “highly compensated in salary and stock grants,” said the complaint. She also had access to Charter’s “most closely guarded trade secret information” about its strategies for rural deployment of its internet services through federal, state and local franchise awards, grants, subsidies “and other benefits for which Charter competes directly with other internet providers,” it said. Charter brings the action based on Gilbert’s breach of her stock grant agreements and her violation of the South Carolina Trade Secrets Act, it said.
Gilbert worked for Charter in Ohio from 2011 to 2018 and was promoted in 2018 to director-government and community strategy, said the complaint. She held that role until 2021, when she was promoted again to her most recent position, director-state government affairs in South Carolina, it said. She accepted grants of restricted Charter stock six times between 2019 and 2023, including twice in 2022, it said. All the grants were conditioned on her acceptance of terms and conditions, "including certain restrictive covenants," it said.
In her most recent role, Gilbert was responsible for rural broadband deployment and obtaining broadband subsidy funding across several southeastern states, said the complaint. Her role included representing Charter before state and local governments and administrative agencies, it said. She also was involved in franchising and procurement and community affairs activities, plus in “strategically planning, managing and executing other activities and events that advanced Charter’s business strategies and objectives,” it said.
Despite the “clear prohibitions” in Gilbert’s stock grant agreements barring her from competing against Charter for six months after she left the company or from divulging its trade secrets, she began working in May as vice president-public affairs at Open Fiber USA, “a direct competitor,” said the complaint. Several statutes enacted during the COVID-19 pandemic gave broadband companies like Charter and Open Fiber “the opportunity to bid for subsidies to help offset capital construction costs to rural areas where federal, state and local grants may be necessary to make it financially possible to provide internet service,” it said.
Charter’s bids involve the use of confidential information, trade secrets and other “proprietary business strategies relevant to Charter’s approach to competitive bidding,” said the complaint. That’s information that Gilbert “knew and used in her role with Charter,” it said. By accepting employment with Open Fiber, Gilbert “flagrantly breached” her stock grant agreements, it said. She also violated the South Carolina Trade Secret Act by “leveraging her years of experience at Charter” and her access to and “intimate knowledge” of Charter’s confidential and trade secret information, it said.
The proprietary information that Gilbert possesses from her years at Charter involve pricing formulas, pricing strategy and methods, negotiation tactics, budget initiatives, contract terms and conditions, and “business opportunities for renewal and procurement” of government grants and franchises, said the complaint. She was also privy to “a host of other information that formed the basis of Charter’s commercial strategy in rural broadband deployments, it said.
Gilbert’s job at Open Fiber gives her new employer “a competitive advantage at Charter’s expense,” said the complaint. It also damages Charter’s reputation, goodwill and business and governmental relationships, it said. Charter is entitled to temporary and preliminary injunctive relief to prevent further unfair competition by Gilbert and irreparable harm to Charter, “pending the outcome of the parties’ forthcoming arbitration,” it said.
Gilbert is bound by a mandatory arbitration provision included in her stock grant agreements, said the complaint. The agreements enable either party to apply to a court for "provisional relief," including a temporary restraining order or a preliminary injunction, it said. The agreements stipulate that the award "to which the applicant may be entitled in arbitration may be rendered ineffectual without provisional relief,” it said. Efforts to reach Gilbert or her attorneys for comment Friday were unsuccessful.