Panacea Financial v. Tallied Technologies, Inc.

District Court, N.D. California·Decided September 24, 2025·No. 4:25-cv-03194·Unknown

Opinion

PANACEA FINANCIAL, Case No. 25-cv-03194-JST

Plaintiff, ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND v. DENYING IN PART MOTION TO DISMISS Re: ECF No. 28 Defendant.

Before the Court is Defendant Tallied Technologies, Inc.’s (“Tallied”) motion to dismiss. ECF No. 28. The Court will grant the motion in part and deny it in part. I. BACKGROUND1 Plaintiff Panacea Financial (“Panacea”) brought this action against Tallied based on allegations that Tallied unlawfully misused confidential information that Panacea shared under a Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement (“MNDA”) to edge Panacea out in the securing of a partnership with the American Dental Association (“ADA”). Panacea is a financial services company started by doctors to provide banking, capital, and financing solutions to medical providers. ECF No. 1 ¶¶ 15–16. As part of its business strategy, Panacea “has developed strong relationships and entered into affinity partnerships with numerous medical trade associations including,” in January 2024, with the ADA. Id. ¶ 18. “Panacea’s partnership with the ADA is memorialized in a January 2024 services agreement that appoints Panacea as the exclusive financial services company to establish and maintain an affinity program for ADA members for various financial services products and services.” Id. ¶ 19. As a result of this partnership, “Panacea gained intimate, non-public, confidential, and valuable knowledge regarding the ADA’s membership, financial structure, its preferences for services/products, and business opportunities,” including “a confidential opportunity to bid on the purchase of a portfolio of [roughly] 10,000 existing credit cards issued by U.S. Bank to ADA members, and to co-brand newly issued consumer and small business credit cards with the ADA.” Id. ¶¶ 21, 23. Through the discussions about this potential credit card partnership, “Panacea obtained valuable, non- public, confidential information regarding the projected program scope and some of the ADA’s desired characteristics for the program and a go-forward partner, including as it related to pricing, conversion, timeline, and technological specifications.” Id. ¶ 26. To prepare for the ADA’s forthcoming request for proposal (“RFP”), Panacea began engaging in discussions with Tallied—a startup credit card processor—to explore a partnership for Panacea’s credit card needs. Id. ¶¶ 27–28. As a part of these discussions, Panacea and Tallied executed an MNDA in February 2024. Id. ¶ 31; see also ECF No. 1-1. The MNDA’s stated purpose is to “protect the confidentiality of certain confidential information of [Tallied] or of [Panacea] to be disclosed under this Agreement solely for use in evaluating or pursuing a business relationship between the parties (“Permitted Use”).” ECF No. 1-1 at 1. Under the MNDA, “[n]either Receiving Party will make, have made, use or sell for any purpose any product or other item using, incorporating or derived from any Confidential Information of the Disclosing Party.” Id. ¶ 7. The MNDA defines “Confidential Information,” in relevant part, to include:

any and all technical and non-technical information disclosed by such Party (Disclosing Party) to the other Party (Receiving Party) which may include without limitation . . . trade secrets; proprietary and confidential information; ideas; techniques; models; knowhow; processes; formulae related to the current future and proposed products and services of each of the Parties, such as information concerning research . . . development . . . financial information . . . procurement requirements, purchasing, manufacturing, customer lists, investors, employees, business and contractual relationships, business forecasts, sales and merchandising, and marketing plans . . . [and] all other information that the Receiving Party knew, or reasonably should have known, was the Confidential Information of the Disclosing Party. “After execution of the MNDA, Tallied and Panacea began a series of confidential discussions on collaborating to create a branded commercial credit card program offering for Panacea customers, including the ADA.” ECF No. 1 ¶ 38. At the time the MNDA was executed, “Tallied had approximately two hundred consumer credit cards for which it served as processor, and no business card programs” and, according to Panacea, “lacked the knowledge, personnel, expertise, and contacts to bid on or scale a large credit card portfolio such as the ADA program on its own.” Id. ¶¶ 42–43. Between March and May of 2024, Panacea shared the following Confidential Information with Tallied in anticipation of a collaboration on the ADA credit card program: “(i) that the ADA and its existing credit card partner were confidentially contemplating a divestiture of the ADA- branded credit card portfolio; (ii) the anticipated timing of the RFP process; (iii) proposals concerning the ADA’s credit card program construct, rewards structure, acquisition strategy, and partnership drivers; and (iv) Panacea’s anticipated pricing and cost of funding in response to the RFP.” Id. ¶ 45. In May 2024, Panacea informed Tallied that it “was examining other credit card processing partners but had narrowed its proposed processing partner down to Tallied and one other option.” Id. ¶ 46. Later that month, Panacea “provided further, confidential, and detailed feedback on Tallied’s pricing model, including as to the economic model on interchange fees that would be required to share with the ADA for its existing credit card portfolio.” Id. ¶ 47. After an ADA consultant involved with the credit card program indicated that the ADA was unlikely to select a “nascent and unproven processing platform like Tallied,” Panacea “informed Tallied in early June of 2024 that it was going to continue vetting processors, including seeking a more experienced processor to partner with for the ADA program.” Id. ¶¶ 57–58. On June 14, 2024, the ADA issued its formal RFP for a co-branded consumer and small business card program, including an opportunity to purchase the ADA’s existing portfolio of cards from U.S. Bank. Id. ¶¶ 59–60. “On information and belief, the confidential RFP was provided to a small number of potential bidders. Panacea received the confidential RFP pursuant to a previously executed non-disclosure agreement with the ADA, and the ADA stated that the RFP response to the RFP and received feedback from the ADA indicating that it was the lowest bidder.” Id. ¶ 64. Panacea then discovered that Tallied submitted its own proposal to the ADA on July 19, 2024, despite representing to Panacea that it considered Panacea to be its partner. Id. ¶ 65. Two months later, “the ADA repeatedly asked Panacea if it could aggressively bid on pricing and interchange fees because there was now an ‘anonymous’ low bidder.” Id. ¶ 73. Based on those comments, Panacea believes “Tallied used Confidential Information Panacea shared with it about its own proposed pricing to undercut and undermine Panacea’s ability to win the RFP” and that this allowed Tallied to ultimately win the RFP as the lowest bidder—meaning it offered “the highest percentage revenue share on interchange or transaction fees associated with each credit card transaction that is processed using an ADA branded credit card” Id. ¶¶ 74–76, 78. “Tallied used the pricing information it obtained from Panacea to undercut Panacea even though Tallied, until receiving information from Panacea, did not even include a revenue share with the ADA in a rudimentary pricing model it shared with Panacea.” Id. ¶ 77. On February 21, 2025, Panacea informed Tallied that Panacea had discovered Tallied’s wrongful actions and that “unless the matter could be amicably resolved, Panacea would have no choice but to file suit.” Id. ¶ 79. Tallied responded by denying any wrongdoing and terminating the MNDA. Id. On April 9, 2025, Panacea filed this lawsuit asserting claims for: (1) breach of contract; (2) unjust enrichment; (3) violation of the Delaware Uniform Trade Se

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Panacea Financial v. Tallied Technologies, Inc., (N.D. Cal. 2025).

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