All About The Green: RES Group Sues Hudson Clean Energy Partners
Hudson Clean Energy Partners, a private equity firm formed last year by alternative energy bankers from Goldman Sachs, has been hit with a lawsuit by wind power giant Renewable Energy Systems Ltd. The complaint was filed in New Jersey District Court, and includes allegations of trade secret misappropriation and inducing, aiding and assisting breach of fiduciary duty. At issue is Hudson’s July hiring of Mike O’Neill, who had been second-in-command at RES and a director on the company’s board. According to the complaint: For several months before O’Neill gave notice to RES, he was actually serving in part as Hudson’s top-level “inside man” within RES, helping Hudson develop its competitive venture, working on numerous business planning and other documents for Hudson, and inevitably providing to Hudson the benefit of RES’ proprietary, trade secret and confidential information. If RES had not discovered that O’Neill was secretly helping Hudson to develop its competitive venture while remaining in the employ of RES, and thereafter commenced an investigation, it is unknown for how much longer Hudson would have continued to use him in this manner. The “competitive venture” to which RES refers is Element Power, a global platform focused on utility-scale wind and solar energy development. O’Neill was officially hired to launch
