Commercial Capital Bancorp Inc. of Irvine, Calif., said Tuesday that it was appealing a court ruling that bars bankers it recently hired away from Comerica Inc. from using "trade secrets" to solicit Comerica's customers.
Commercial Capital said it had filed a notice of appeal with the California Superior Court for San Francisco County, which had issued a preliminary injunction Monday prohibiting it from "using, destroying, concealing, and/or disclosing any of Comerica Bank's confidential, proprietary, or trade-secret information."
The injunction also said the $5.2 billion-asset company could not solicit any Comerica customers or other Comerica employees while the lawsuit is ongoing.
In July, 24 employees from Comerica's western financial services division joined Commercial. Comerica, based in Detroit, then filed a lawsuit and requested a restraining order to prevent its former employees from using proprietary information and bringing customers with them.
Commercial will vigorously defend itself against the suit, said Stephen H. Gordon, its chairman and chief executive, in a press release. "In conducting our business we do not need to use, nor want to use, another company's confidential, proprietary, or trade-secret information regarding its customers, employees, or vendors," he said.
