Early this week it was made public that ADCOR Defense had won a 20 million dollar lawsuit against Beretta for numerous violations of their agreements. You can read that press release HERE. As we said in that article, we were given access to the legal team behind ADCOR Defense. After a short phone call with their lawyer, we learned that this is just the beginning. Of the many charges still outstanding, there are a few that stand out above them all and will have serious ramifications for Beretta. Those include but are not limited to:
- breach of contract
- unjust enrichment
- fraud
- misappropriation of trade secrets
ADCOR’s lawyer did say that they are letting the dust settle on the 20 million dollar verdict before appealing the above charges. Out of those above charges, two of them have significant dollar amounts attached to them. The most important of those is the misappropriation of trade secrets. The estimated dollar amount of that charge is 40 million dollars. The other is the breach of contract, which would add an additional 40 million dollars. That’s not hard math. If ADCOR wins all three lawsuits against Beretta, that is 100 million dollars.
Beretta did contact us with a statement in response to our original article:
Below please find Beretta USA’s statement in response to the article published on December 17 titled “ADCOR Defense has Beretta in its sights…”
The jury found against Beretta U.S.A. and awarded damages after finding Beretta U.S.A. breached a non-disclosure agreement with the plaintiffs. Beretta U.S.A. does not agree with the result of that verdict and plans to pursue all available post-trial options. Beretta did not provide any of the plaintiffs’ confidential information to anyone else and only retained it to defend itself against the litigation threatened by plaintiffs. Beretta U.S.A. denies that it took any of the plaintiffs’ intellectual property related to a prototype of a rifle that Beretta U.S.A. never made and does not plan to make. The court found that these allegations were without merit.
Beretta is a well-known company that has been around for a long time. When asked if this could potentially put them to bed, there was no comment. Beretta also made no offer to settle or appeal the 20 million dollar lawsuit which leads one to think they are in denial of what’s happening. Regardless, this is only the beginning. ADCOR’s legal team is letting the dust settle on the initial lawsuit and is planning on appealing the ‘misappropriation of trade secrets’ within the next few weeks. Stay tuned.
*Photo courtesy of Youtube
