CBRE Accuses Departed Executive of Stealing Secrets for New Firm

(Bloomberg) -- CBRE Group Inc., the world's largest commercial real estate services provider, accused a former vice chairman of its retail group of stealing almost half a million files of proprietary information and trade secrets before he left last month to form his own company.

Richard Rizika, who had been a broker with the company for more than 30 years, and members of his team downloaded rent rolls, stacking plans, broker opinions, contracts, marketing plans and financial information to start a competing company, according to a complaint CBRE filed Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles.

The day after he resigned, Rizika invited members of his CBRE retail sales team to his home where he gave a presentation of his new company and asked them to join, according to the complaint.

“During the meeting, Rizika asked if they were ‘in' and told the CBRE employees and salespeople to go ahead and give notice of their resignation to CBRE,” the company said. “He even offered them an opportunity to sign up for insurance with an insurance broker in the next room.”

Rizika couldn't be immediately reached for comment on the lawsuit.

The case is CBRE Inc. v. Rizika, 18-CV-01730, U.S. District Court, Central District of California (Los Angeles).

To contact the reporter on this story: Edvard Pettersson in Los Angeles at epettersson@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net.

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