Cartier Accuses Tiffany & Co. of ‘Stealing Trade Secrets’ in New Lawsuit

Cartier has sued Tiffany & Co. for allegedly “stealing trade secrets” about its jewelry.

In the suit, which the Guardian reports was filed in New York on Monday, Cartier accuses Tiffany of stealing the trade secrets in question by way of a former employee. Tiffany, specifically, is alleged to have “hired away” junior manager Megan Marino as part of a larger effort to embolden their high jewelry-focused division.

Per a separate report from Bloomberg, the suit also names Marino, who’s accused of downloading confidential Cartier info and later sharing it with fellow Tiffany employees. Marino is reported to have been fired from her new Tiffany job after the brand’s legal team was made aware of the situation. Meanwhile, Marino said in an affidavit that Tiffany was allegedly “more interested” in bringing her aboard the team as an info source than as a legitimate manager.

Complex has reached out to reps for Cartier and Tiffany & Co. for comment and will update this post accordingly. In a statement shared with Bloomberg on Monday, a Tiffany rep denied what they described as a “baseless allegation.”

As frequenters of such news may recall, Cartier and Tiffany last appeared in lawsuit-focused headlines together back in 2014. At the time, Cartier was reported to have filed a suit alleging that a former advertising director had attempted to get an employee to download confidential info, only to later (allegedly) make efforts at convincing that employee to join them at Tiffany. The former employee at the center of those allegations, however, later argued that the case should be dismissed due to the fact that no such information had been obtained or used.