A New York City-based renewable energy company has sued its former general counsel, alleging he misappropriated trade secrets and used them to launch a competing business with his wife.

According to the complaint filed Friday in the Southern District of New York, Hilary Kao, who joined Onyx Renewable Partners as general counsel in 2017, downloaded more than 10,000 confidential and proprietary documents from Onyx’s data room two days before he resigned from the company in May 2021.