American International Group Inc (AIG) sued the former chief executive officer of its International Lease Finance Corp (ILFC) aircraft lending business, saying he stole confidential information when he left the company and started Air Lease Corp.
AIG filed a complaint on Tuesday at Los Angeles Superior Court accusing Steven Udvar-Hazy and 10 other former International Lease Finance executives of breach of fiduciary duty and stealing trade secrets, among other claims, when they left the company in 2010.
AIG seeks to recover “several hundreds of millions” of US dollars, according to the complaint.
“We regret having to file this suit, but the defendants’ misconduct left us no choice but to go to court to protect our rights and the rights of our shareholders, including our largest shareholder, the American taxpayer,” Mark Herr, a spokesman for New York-based AIG, said in an e-mailed statement.
AIG said Udvar-Hazy tried to buy all or part of International Lease Finance, the Los Angeles-based firm he started in 1973 and sold to AIG in 1990 for US$1.3 billion. AIG was soliciting bids for ILFC in 2008 when the insurer needed to raise capital to repay an US$85 billion US government loan, the complaint said.
Udvar-Hazy couldn’t reach an agreement in January 2010 to buy a fleet of planes from International Lease Finance to start his business because he wouldn’t be allowed to solicit other executives or use confidential data, it said.
He “resigned from ILFC, and then stole what ILFC refused to sell,” the complaint said.
Among the trade secrets AIG says the former executives stole were leased aircraft valuation summaries, terms sheets and contracts of dozens of leases, the “sin list” of customer payment history and lease agreements some of these executives were actively working on.
Air Lease said in a statement that International Lease Finance resorted to filing a lawsuit because it has not been able to compete and perceives Air Lease as a growing threat.
International Lease Finance has “struggled with an aging fleet, heavy debt load, and loss of talent,” Air Lease said.
Herr said in a follow-up statement that Air Lease’s allegations were “spurious” and a “smoke screen to distract attention from its illegal conduct.”
The EU and US are nearing an agreement to coordinate on producing and securing critical minerals, part of a push to break reliance on Chinese supplies. The potential deal would create incentives, such as minimum prices, that could advantage non-Chinese suppliers, according to a draft of an “action plan” seen by Bloomberg. The EU and US would also cooperate on standards, investments and joint projects, as well as coordinate on any supply disruptions by countries like China. The two sides are additionally seeking other “like-minded partners” to join a multicountry accord to help create these new critical mineral supply chains, which feed into
For weeks now, the global tech industry has been waiting for a major artificial intelligence (AI) launch from DeepSeek (深度求索), seen as a benchmark for China’s progress in the fast-moving field. More than a year has passed since the start-up put Chinese AI on the map in early last year with a low-cost chatbot that performed at a similar level to US rivals. However, despite reports and rumors about its imminent release, DeepSeek’s next-generation “V4” model is nowhere in sight. Speculation is also swirling over the geopolitical implications of which computer chips were chosen to train and power the new
Elon Musk’s lieutenants have reached out to chip industry suppliers, including Applied Materials Inc, Tokyo Electron Ltd and Lam Research Corp, for his envisioned Terafab, early steps in an audacious and likely arduous attempt to break into the production of cutting-edge chips. Staff working for the joint venture between Tesla Inc and Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) have sought price quotes and delivery times for an array of chipmaking gear, people familiar with the matter said. In past weeks, they’ve contacted makers of photomasks, substrates, etchers, depositors, cleaning devices, testers and other tools, according to the people, who asked not to
Japan approved ￥631.5 billion (US$3.97 billion) in additional subsidies to hasten Rapidus Corp’s entry into the high-stakes artificial intelligence (AI) chipmaking arena, ramping up support for a project widely regarded as a long shot. The capital is intended to bankroll Rapidus’ work for information technology firm Fujitsu Ltd, one of the initial customers that Tokyo hopes would get the signature endeavor off the ground. The new money raises the fees and investments that the government is injecting into the start-up to ￥2.6 trillion by the end of the current fiscal year to March next year, the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and
RSS