A Bay Area medical device company alleged in a lawsuit last week that its former business partners “brazenly” stole money, employees and trade secrets as part of a “criminal enterprise.” In a lawsuit filed Friday in the United States District Court’s Northern District of California, Lumenous Device Technologies accused former employees of its partner company in China of operating as a “criminal syndicate.
was thriving,” the lawsuit says, and preparing to go public. But the IPO process hit a snag due to a “ministerial defect that complicated “sprang into criminal action,” which the suit claims was done in pursuit of higher earnings from an eventual IPO if Lumenous was no longer the owner of to around 27%, the filing said, “with the understanding that the Shen Enterprise would be able to successfully steal the business’s assets, including trade secrets and cash, if Lumenous refused.” One defendant, in an email cited in the suit, wrote, “Our direction is very clear: set up a new platform and the team will become a major shareholder. We deserve it.”
bank accounts, and argued in Chinese court that