Departing Employee Charged With Stealing Sensitive Bank Property..

[ by Melanie Gretchen ]

A former Vice President with Credit Suisse AG introduced a new meaning to the term, "working vacation."  According to a complaint filed by Credits Suisse, the emerging markets group employee, Agostina Pechi, took time out of her "vacation" to apparently conduct an "after-hours document raid." 

Ms. Pechi supposedly copied transaction documents related to a longtime Credit Suisse client, and stole confidential documents and trade secrets.  Her efforts were aimed at facilitating her move to a new employer, the Goldman Sachs Group. 

Federal Findings and Allegations.    Ms. Pechi resigned from Credit Suisse on 4/2/13, and told the HR Dept that she was accepting a new position with Goldman Sachs.  For reasons that were not made public, Credit Suisse then launched an investigation into her departure and found that 60 business-related e-mails in her personal account had been deleted the next day and could not be recovered.  Credit Suisse was able to piece together the following scenario: 

Ms. Pechi had been sending confidential and highly sensitive company documents to her personal email account in the months leading up to her resignation - including databases, client contact information and sales team targets.

Credit Suisse related these findings in its complaint, along with the following notation:  "Upon information and belief, Pechi intends to use confidential Credit Suisse information to compete with Credit Suisse, and intends to provide this information to her new employer to specifically target Credit Suisse's clients."

Credit Suisse seeks a temporary restraining order barring Ms. Pechi for 30 days from seeking business from company clients.  The bank further asked the court to order the return of all confidential Credit Suisse information and trade secrets that had been removed from the bank's offices. 

Credit Suisse is planning for an expedited mediation, and, if that fails, it would take the matter to arbitration - which is stipulated in Ms. Pechi's employment agreement.

The case: Credit Suisse Securities (USA) LLC v. Pechi, New York Supreme Court, No. 651617-2013.

For further details, go to [Reuters, 5/6/13].