The fallout’s started over Irvine-based Commercial Capital Bancorp Inc.’s hiring of a Comerica Inc. real estate services team.
Comerica won a temporary restraining order last week, stopping those who jumped to Commercial Capital from destroying or concealing confidential information allegedly taken from the El Segundo office of the Detroit-based bank.
Comerica filed a lawsuit in California Superior Court in San Francisco shortly after Commercial Capital said in late July that it had hired a group of bankers from Comerica’s El Segundo operation.
The workers rejoined their former boss who earlier bolted to start up Commercial Capital’s newly formed commercial banking division.
The Comerica suit filed on July 29 names 24 defendants, including James R. Daley, a former Comerica executive who ran the bank’s financial services division in El Segundo. Daley was hired by Commercial Capital in early July to launch a similar business unit for the thrift.
Comerica charges a conspiracy among former Comerica executives who allegedly engaged in an “unlawful and unethical campaign to deliberately disrupt” Comerica’s business through misusing Comerica’s trade secrets and confidential employee and customer information, according to the suit.
The temporary restraining order issued last week blocks the former Comerica employees from disclosing trade secrets and financial dealings to current or potential Comerica customers that appear on lists kept by the bank prior to the group’s departure on July 22.
The order also stops the employees from destroying or tampering with e-mail, data, paper records and information that Comerica uses to analyze customer pricing and credit models.
The judge didn’t weigh in on the legality of the hirings.
He did find enough reason to stop Commercial Capital’s potential use of trade secrets, according to Comerica spokesman Barry Holtzclaw.
A hearing has been set for Sept. 6 to decide whether to make the temporary order a permanent one.
Comerica’s legal tack didn’t appear to surprise Commercial Capital.
“Everything will work out in its normal course. This isn’t about fighting,” said Stephen H. Gordon, chief executive of Commercial Capital. “This is how it works. People resigned and came here. The next thing to do is make sure their company is protected. I would do that, too.”
The bankers came from what Comerica calls its financial services division, which manages roughly $8 billion of the bank’s $40 billion in deposits.
The bankers provided escrow, deposit and credit services to Comerica’s title insurance and escrow clients. They also provided wire transfers, Treasury bond investing and other services.
Escrow services make up the bulk of the work in Comerica’s financial services division. Comerica has contracts with title companies to make short-term investments of escrowed funds on homes that are in the process of being bought.
Comerica named Charles E. Pohl to replace Daley as head of the bank’s El Segundo division.
Pohl moves from Costa Mesa, where he had directed Comerica’s middle-market banking operations for Orange and San Diego counties.
