(Updated, 03/25/10, 10:50 a.m.)
Kevin Goetz's ambitions to become a major player in the fiercely competitive movie market research industry have hit a major roadblock.
Online Testing Exchange (OTX) sued the executive in Los Angeles Superior Court on Tuesday, charging the former president of its motion picture group with using the company's data to launch a rival firm, Screen Engine.
The suit accused Goetz of breach of contract, misappropriation of trade secrets and intentional interference with contractual relations, among other alleged offenses.
(Read the full complaint here).
An emergency injunction barring Goetz (above) from using any data he retained while an OTX employee for the duration of the litigation also was granted on Tuesday, Vincent Bruzzese, Goetz's successor, told TheWrap.
Representatives for Goetz, however, claim that no injunction or restraining order was granted and that discussions over the data in question are ongoing. Because the court order was administered verbally by Chalfan in the courtroom, a typed version of the order did not exist at the time this article went to print.
"The judge's decision yesterday confirms that Screen Engine LLC is free to continue its business without any interruption or change in its operations," Screen Engine's counsel Gary W. Nevers said in a statement.
Goetz, who left OTX without warning in February, had been there for seven years.
(On Thursday, lawyers for Goetz told TheWrap that they had filed an opposition to OTX's complaint. They contest OTX's arguments that Goetz's efforts to solicit employees and clients of OTX for his new company Screen Engine are in violation of noncompete laws, because they claim such rules violate California public policy.
(They also admit that Goetz's assistant inadvertently downloaded OTX information while transferring personal financial information from a work computer, but state that he had returned those files to the company immediately upon discovering the mistake.)
Relations between Goetz and his former company went south after French company Ipsos acquired the 200-person market research firm in January for an undisclosed sum. Following the sale, Goetz approached senior executives at OTX with a proposal to run their screenings as an independent contractor believing his payout from the sale did not reflect his true value to the company, according to individuals with knowledge of the talks.
Representatives for Goetz would not confirm negotiations took place and would only say that they could not reach an agreement that was acceptable to both sides.
By resorting to a legal challenge, OTX may have muddied the waters for Goetz at a critical time for his young business. The $60 million in revenue that OTX recorded last year shows this is a fight to guard potentially tens of millions of dollars in business.
Goetz's reputation for providing critically important screening data could represent a threat to OTX, which, as the 116-page complaint makes clear, was blindsided by his abrupt departure.
Part of the reason OTX may have moved so aggressively to stifle Goetz's company is that he had become the face of OTX's screening business, cultivating longstanding relationships with Hollywood's top studios.
