Your client, a Silicon-alley technology company, is negotiating its acquisition by a larger competitor. It shares information, but the deal falls apart. Suddenly, your client’s key employees leave to join the competitor, taking business with them. Your client is small, and its records of profits limited, so the damages awarded in traditional lawsuits for breach of contract or fraud might not justify the expense of asserting a claim. Does RICO[1]� , with its provision for treble damages, provide a viable cause of action?
Despite much noted judicial antagonism to the use of RICO in private lawsuits, the courts have left an opening for plaintiffs who are injured by the wrongful actions of a direct competitor.[2]� That opening has been widened by a recent decision of the Second Circuit in Commercial Cleaning Services, L.L.C. v. Colin Service Systems, Inc.[3]�
