CBRE Takes Colliers To Court Over Departure Of Nashville Self-Storage Broker

CBRE filed suit this week against Mathews Partners, operating as the Nashville office of Colliers International; Colliers Nashville CEO Janet Miller; and James Compton, a specialist in self-storage facilities who left CBRE to join Colliers last month. 

CBRE alleges that Compton took confidential documents and trade secrets belonging to CBRE with him when he joined Colliers. "CBRE has direct evidence that Compton was instructed by Miller to download and transfer CBRE files to Colliers," the plaintiff alleges in its lawsuit. 

The suit asserts that Compton accessed, modified and deleted more than 56,000 files from CBRE's system to benefit his new employer, breaching his "common law duty of loyalty, good faith and fair dealing" by "soliciting CBRE's existing clients to his future employer, Colliers."

According to the suit, an email sent to Compton before he left CBRE includes a "to-do list" attachment that includes the lines: "Download all your files from CBRE system...bring to office so IT can upload the files and be sure they are all functioning before you resign...Do any listing agreements need to be cancelled by owner and transferred over to Colliers?" Various other emails are also cited by the lawsuit to support CBRE's case.

Colliers International partner Bert Mathews sent the following statement to Bisnow this morning: “We have been informed that Colliers International | Nashville is the subject of a lawsuit. The plaintiff in the lawsuit is CBRE. Our attorney is currently reviewing the suit. This is a legal matter, and we will not have a public comment at this time.”

The plaintiff is asking a US District Court judge for a jury trial and a temporary restraining order requiring all the documents be returned, and that the defendants refrain from using information obtained from CBRE. A court hearing on the case was scheduled for earlier this week, but was canceled by Judge Waverly Crenshaw Jr. The judge gave no reason for the cancellation.

Pictured: US Court House and Federal Office Building in Nashville