Americas News
Stone Oil Sues Sunoco Over Alleged Data Theft
Marine fuel supplier Stone Oil has filed a lawsuit against energy firm Sunoco over the alleged theft of its data and trade secrets.
As Ship & Bunker reported previously, former Stone Oil COO Anthony Odak left the company last month to run marine operations for Sunoco.
Stone Oil has now filed a lawsuit in Louisiana against Sunoco, its marine unit Sunoco Marine, Odak and Sunoco employees James Stapleton, Kyle Burgess and Stephen Smith.
The suit alleges that Sunoco had initially approached Stone Oil over his firm potentially acquiring the supplier in August 2024, before being turned down.
The allegation is then that Odak stole proprietary and confidential data from Stone Oil to pass to Sunoco from November 2024 until he left the company.
"This data will be used by the defendants (that is why they stole it) to identify which customers of Stone Oil are vulnerable to poaching and will be used to identify where predatory pricing can cause customers to leave Stone Oil," the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit was filed with the 24th Judicial District Court for the Parish of Jefferson, State of Louisiana on March 3. The case continues.
