1. This case arises out of Defendant’s opportunistic and brazen attempts to extort money from Cruise and Mr. Vogt. As alleged below, after mutually parting ways with Mr. Vogt over two years ago, Mr. Guillory emerged from the shadows with his hand out within days of the March 11, 2016 news that General Motors Company (“GM”) intends to acquire Cruise. As explained below, Mr. Guillory should put his hand back into his pocket; he does not have any stake in the Company.
2. Defendant’s shocking and opportunistic claim is an attempt to thwart, interfere or otherwise delay GM’s merger acquisition of Cruise for his own pecuniary benefit. Knowing that his claim could interfere with the GM transaction, Mr. Guillory hopes to leverage his extortionist claims to achieve a pay-off from the Company. Declaratory relief is therefore necessary to remove potential uncertainty regarding equity ownership, partnership interests, intellectual property and trade secrets of the Company...
Given that such inflammatory language will have no positive effect on the judge, and if anything distracts from the actual precise legal arguments, it seems calculated entirely for the attention of the press and/or general public.
I have no opinion on the merits of this one obviously, but in my experience, when you see a complaint with language of that kind it's often a sign that there's more to the story.
To that point, the fourth cause of action is regarding "Trade Secrets" in the possession of the Defendant and states that "Plaintiffs have reason to be concerned that Defendant may attempt to use such trade secrets in his further endeavors"
Which does prompt a question of how a person who never had any involvement in the company and its technology came to be in possession of its trade secrets.
In fairness, it's certainly plausible that its basis is solely in claims made by the Defendant, and not meant to imply there is any actual IP in his possession.
Or, it could mean that during the acquisition his early role came to light and he was asked to sign away any potential IP by the acquiring company and declined to do so without compensation, since he might want to do a similar project in the future. Did he reach out when he heard the news, or did the company reach out to him during acquisition due diligence?
That's complete speculation, but we have no choice but to guess, since unlike a typical complaint to commence a legal action, this particular one doesn't contain an affidavit or make any attempt to establish an underlying factual record at all.
Instead of saying he "emerged with his hand out" it could state "contacted X via email asking for Y on Date Z" in the style of an actual legal argument rather than of a press release. Rather than referencing "baseless allegations" and "shocking and opportunistic claim" it could just state the claims he made.
So, what shocking thing did he say? What is his stated rationale for compensation? On what date is there the first written evidence that he's making a claim of equity? Why aren't there any exhibits attached? Why aren't there any quotes from the emails he sent?