Ronin’s New CFO Sued By Previous Employer

John Walpuck who joined Ronin Technologies Inc., Minneapolis, as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer from a similar dual role at AllDigital Holdings Inc.. in April 2014 ^[1] is seemingly being sued by his previous employer.

On May 16, 2014, AllDigital Holdings, Inc. ^[2] filed a suit in the Superior Court of the State of California in Orange County naming three of its prior employees, John Walpuck, David Hemingway and Konstantin Wilms, as defendants (Case Number: 30-2014-00723384-CU-IP-CJC ^[3]).

It states that…

• John Walpuck was employed as AllDigital Holdings, Inc.’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer from December 1, 2010 through his resignation on November 14, 2013
• David Hemingway was employed as AllDigital Holdings, Inc.’s Vice President of Media Services from October 27, 2010 until his resignation on April 4, 2014. David is now listed as a consultant on his LinkedIn profile ^[4]
• Konstantin Wilms was employed as AllDigital Holdings, Inc.’s Chief Architect and Chief Technology Officer from July 11, 2011 through his resignation on December 3, 2013. Konstantin is now listed as Founder at GeoPacket Labs on his LinkedIn profile ^[5]. GeoPacket Labs is described as a consultancy with a focus on niche incubator-style projects, catering to broadcast, encryption, IPTV, virtualization, real-time data service and large-scale delivery deployments and architectures

In its complaint, AllDigital Holdings, Inc. claims that each of the defendants, among other things, misappropriated its trade secrets and breached their obligations of confidentiality to them.

AllDigital Holdings, Inc. is seeking actual damages of at least USD 2.5 million in lost profits by reason of defendants improper appropriation of AllDigital Holdings, Inc. trade secrets, damages of USD 2.5 million in reasonable royalties by reason of defendants improper appropriation of AllDigital Holdings, Inc. trade secrets and an injunction restraining the defendants from directly or indirectly using the AllDigital Holdings, Inc. trade secrets.

One interesting line in the actual complaint is this paragraph, we quote “Currently, Mr. Walpuck is the CFO / CTO of a competitor of AllDigital called Wireless Ronin Technologies, Inc. (“Ronin”). Wireless Ronin is a publicly traded company (OTCQB: RNIN) located in Minneapolis, MN. Ronin is currently attempting to merge operations with Broadcast International, Inc. (“Broadcast”) (OTCQB: BCST), which is also a competitor of AllDigital that previously tried but failed to merge with AllDigital in late 2013“.

There are also (at least) two other paragraphs that should interest Ronin CEO Scott Koller, his board, investors and possible acquirer(s), again we quote: –

• “19. AllDigital is informed and believes and thereon alleges that a potential acquirer of Wireless Ronin (to the benefit of the Defendants) used electronic means to allow others to secretly transmit a confidential conversation between AllDigital’s CEO and Executive Vice President of Sales at a recent strategic meeting in Los Angeles.
• “46. Mr. Walpuck represented in his resume when he applied for a job with AllDigital that he is a Certified Public Accountant (“CPA”). AllDigital is informed and believes that although Mr. Walpuck may have been a CPA at one time, he has been an inactive CPA since 1989. AllDigital is further informed and believes and thereon alleges that Mr. Walpuck is still continuing to represent to the public that he is a CPA without any qualification that his license has expired. Under generally accepted accounting principles, inactive CPAs are not supposed to hold themselves out as a CPA”.