The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s grant of summary judgment to Prudential Financial, determining a company’s trade secrets misappropriation claim failed due to the lack of evidence of a confidential relationship between the two.

In a July 17 opinion, authored by Sixth Circuit Judge Chad A. Readler, the court determined Novus Group had failed to prove a confidential relationship existed between itself and Prudential, sinking its trade secrets misappropriation claim, which stemmed around Novus’s allegation that the company had copied its annuity product.