eVestment filed a countersuit against Compass iTech, alleging the company illegally entered the eVestment database on several occasions and downloaded restricted data for its own commercial gain.
The counterclaim, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach, Fla., charges that Compass’ lawsuit against eVestment is “nothing more than an obvious attempt to hide its own wrongdoing.”
eVestment alleges that Compass “secretly obtained and used” confidential passwords of eVestment’s paying clients to download “a massive amount of restricted, trade secret and highly valuable information” about eVestment customers for its own commercial purposes, court documents show.
“We sharply disagree with their claims and we will continue to vigorously seek remedies against their ongoing malicious actions against our firm and the industry,” said Richard P. Gagnon, Compass president, in an e-mailed statement.
Earlier this month, Compass iTech filed a lawsuit in the same U.S. District Court against eVestment for allegedly interfering with money managers’ use of Compass’ ProFusion data entry tool and for telling Compass customers the company had committed “illegal acts” within the eVestment database.
After failing to acquire Compass and its ProFusion product in early 2014, eVestment started to interfere with money managers’ use of the tool, using methods such as “hiding connection links and implementing verification codes that would slow down and make ProFusion data uploads more difficult,” Compass’ lawsuit alleges.
eVestment denies this allegation in its countersuit. It also denies in its countersuit that any “meaningful acquisition discussions ever took place.”
“The decision to restrict Compass’ access is based solely on their actions and is in no way an attempt to discourage competition,” Mark Scott, eVestment’s spokesman, previously told Pensions & Investments in an e-mailed statement. “There is a much broader story here than what Compass is claiming, and we are looking forward to the facts being revealed.” He declined to provide additional comment on the countersuit.
