Vesta Corp. v. Amdocs Management Ltd.

80 F. Supp. 3d 1152, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3696, 2015 WL 163384
CourtDistrict Court, D. Oregon
DecidedJanuary 13, 2015
DocketNo. 3:14-cv-1142-HZ
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 80 F. Supp. 3d 1152 (Vesta Corp. v. Amdocs Management Ltd.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vesta Corp. v. Amdocs Management Ltd., 80 F. Supp. 3d 1152, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3696, 2015 WL 163384 (D. Or. 2015).

Opinion

OPINION & ORDER

HERNÁNDEZ, District Judge:

Plaintiff Vesta Corporation brings this action against Defendants Amdocs Management Limited and Amdocs, Inc. (collectively, “Defendants”), alleging breach of contract, trade secret misappropriation, and fraud. Defendants move to dismiss the Complaint for failure to state a claim. For the reasons that follow, Defendants’ motion to dismiss is denied in part and granted in part.

BACKGROUND

Plaintiff is an electronic payments and fraud prevention technology company. Compl. Intro. Defendants are telephone billing software and services companies. Id. Both Plaintiff and Defendants provide services to national and international mobile phone network operators (MNOs). Compl. ¶ 9. Payment solutions, such as those provided by Plaintiff; and billing platforms, such as those provided by Defendants; “are distinct in the MNO support services marketplace.” Id. ¶ 11. Payment solutions facilitate an MNO’s receipt of payments from the end-users of mobile devices, whereas billing platforms maintain account status and account information for the MNO and its customers. Id. Until recently, Defendants were not providers of payment solutions. Id. ¶ 12. Because MNOs generally require both payment solutions and billing platforms to serve their customers, Plaintiff and Defendants collaborated with one another to integrate their services and platforms in order to appeal to their shared customer base. Id. ¶¶ 13,14.

Plaintiff alleges that, beginning in 2006, Plaintiff and Defendants entered into a series of Non-Disclosure/Confidentiality Agreements (NDAs) to preserve confidentiality while sharing information in their effort to develop joint services and products. Id. ¶¶ 13-15. Plaintiff further alleges that, in 2009, the parties executed an NDA to capture their understanding that “all of their meetings and discussions after June 24, 2009, would remain confidential and not be used or disclosed by the other party[.]” Id. ¶ 19. In addition, every time one of Defendants’ employees visited Plaintiffs headquarters, the employee had to sign-in and agree that all of the information acquired while on the premises was confidential. Id. ¶ 20 (describing the “Sign-In NDAs”). On July 3, 2012, the parties executed an additional NDA. Id. ¶ 41.

Plaintiff alleges that from 2010 to 2012, the parties worked together to market their products to Metro PCS, a large MNO, and explored the possibility of Defendants acquiring Plaintiff. Id. ¶¶ 24, 28-35. In 2010, Defendants’ employees made several trips to Plaintiffs headquarters and Plaintiffs Chief Executive Officer [1156]*1156traveled to Tel Aviv to meet with Defendants’ Chief Executive Officer. Id. ¶¶ 25-27. In 2012, the parties worked through a third-party investment banking firm to explore the possibility of acquisition. Id. ¶ 38.

In the course of jointly collaborating on marketing and the possibility of acquisition, Plaintiff shared information with Defendants including “proprietary information about [Plaintiffs] payment solution” and “confidential and proprietary business and financial information.” Id. ¶ 17. Specifically, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants obtained two types of confidential information from Plaintiff: 1) “Solutions Methods,” which include “detailed information about the architecture and design of the solutions, including proprietary payment routines, methodologies and processes”; and 2) “Risk Information,” which includes detailed statistical information about “the prevalence of fraudulent payment transactions in the prepaid mobile device market place” and how Plaintiff “uses fraud data to price its payment solutions.” Id. ¶¶ 22, 51.

Additional facts relevant to particular claims are discussed below.

STANDARDS

A motion to dismiss under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6) tests the sufficiency of the claims. Navarro v. Block, 250 F.3d 729, 732 (9th Cir.2001). “All allegations of material fact are taken as true and construed in the light most favorable to the nonmoving party.” Am. Family Ass’n, Inc. v. City & Cnty. of S.F., 277 F.3d 1114, 1120 (9th Cir.2002). However, the court need not accept conclusory allegations as truthful. See Warren v. Fox Family Worldwide, Inc., 328 F.3d 1136, 1139 (9th Cir.2003) (“[W]e are not required to accept as true conclusory allegations which are contradicted by documents referred to in the complaint, and we do not necessarily assume the truth of legal conclusions merely because they are cast in the form of factual allegations.”) (internal quotation marks, citation, and alterations omitted). Rather, to state a plausible claim for relief, the complaint “must contain sufficient allegations of underlying facts” to support its legal conclusions. Starr v. Baca, 652 F.3d 1202, 1216 (9th Cir.2011).

A motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) will be granted if a plaintiff alleges the “grounds” of his “entitlement to relief’ with nothing “more than labels and conclusions, and a formulaic recitation of the elements of a cause of aetion[.]” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555, 127 S.Ct. 1955, 167 L.Ed.2d 929 (2007). “Factual allegations must be enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact)[J” Id. (citations and footnote omitted).

To survive a motion to dismiss, a complaint “must contain sufficient factual matter, accepted as true, to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its facet,]” meaning “when the plaintiff pleads factual content that allows the court to draw the reasonable inference that the defendant is liable for the misconduct alleged.” Ashcroft v. Iqbal, 556 U.S. 662, 678, 129 S.Ct. 1937, 173 L.Ed.2d 868 (2009) (internal quotation marks omitted). A complaint must contain “well-pleaded facts” which “permit the court to infer more than the mere possibility of misconduct[.]” Id. at 679, 129 S.Ct. 1937.

DISCUSSION

Plaintiff brings three claims: (1) breach of contract, (2) trade secret misappropriation, and (3) fraud. Defendants move to dismiss the claims. The Court denies Defendants’ motion to dismiss the breach of [1157]*1157contract and trade secret misappropriation claims, but grants the motion to dismiss the fraud claim.

I. Incorporation by Reference

The doctrine of incorporation by reference allows “a district court to consider documents whose contents are alleged in a complaint and whose authenticity no party questions, but which are not physically attached to the plaintiffs pleading.” In re Silicon Graphics, Inc. Sec. Litig. (SGI), 183 F.3d 970, 986 (9th Cir.1999) (internal quotation omitted). Because these documents have essentially been adopted as part of the complaint, the Court may consider them without converting the motion to dismiss into a motion for summary judgment. United States v. Ritchie,

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80 F. Supp. 3d 1152, 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3696, 2015 WL 163384, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vesta-corp-v-amdocs-management-ltd-ord-2015.