On May 16, 2025, Justice Bannon of the New York County Commercial Division issued a decision in Sifi Networks Am. LLC v. Generate Capital, PBC, 2025 NY Slip Op. 31842(U), dismissing a theft of trade secrets claim as duplicative of a claim for breach of a NDA, explaining:
The defendants’ motion is granted, however, to the extent it seeks dismissal of the plaintiffs’ causes of action for . . . misappropriation of trade secrets. . . . The misappropriation of trade secrets claim is likewise based on allegations that the plaintiffs shared trade secrets, including the Model and their business methods, with the defendants in connection with their business transaction and subject to the protections of the parties’ agreement, the NDA, which notably included trade secrets within its definition of Confidential Information, and that the defendants have used and are continuing to use these trade secrets for their own pecuniary gain by building competitive open-access fiber optic networks through Ubiquity.
. . . [A] cause of action for misappropriation of trade secrets is duplicative of a breach of contract claim, and is subject to dismissal on that basis, where, as here, it is based entirely on alleged conduct that is proscribed by the subject contract. To be sure, where the same conduct constitutes a breach of a contractual obligation and the breach of a duty independent and distinct from the contract, a party may be subject to both breach of contract and tort claims. Such is not the case here, as the plaintiffs allege no duty constraining the defendants’ disclosure and use of the plaintiffs’ confidential information and trade secrets independent and distinct from the NDA.
(Internal quotations and citations omitted).