Real Estate
REAL ESTATE DRAMA
Following lawsuit, LIC real estate company gets restraining order
against competitor over poaching
BY JENNA BAGCAL
A well-known Long Island City
real estate firm won a victory in
court against a competing New
York-based company.
In June, Modern Spaces
called on the Supreme Court to take action
against real estate technology company Com-pass
from stealing their business “through the
unlawful misappropriation of the Plaintiff’s trade
secrets,” which QNS reported on in February. As
a result, the company asked for compensation
for damages that were incurred, as well as a
restraining order against Compass.
Modern Spaces was founded in 2008 by its
CEO Eric Benaim; Compass was founded in
2012 by Ori Allon and Robert Reffkin.
According to the complaint, Jessica Meis
had worked for Modern Spaces for many years
before she “terminated her relationship with
Modern Spaces” in January 2018. Thereafter, the
company claimed, Meis emailed their proprietary
information to her personal email, including lists
of real estate buyers and sellers.
The lawsuit detailed that Compass had alleg-edly
16 AUGUST 2018 I LIC COURIER I www.qns.com
encouraged Meis to “misappropriate” the
proprietary information and trade secrets that she
stole for the purposes of “its own financial gain.”
Modern Spaces said that they “seek to recover
damages” for several things, including business
that was improperly diverted to Compass using
Photo via Facebook/ModernSpaces
these tactics, misappropriation of trade secrets
under state and federal law, “unlawful inter-ference
with Modern Spaces exclusive listing
agreements” and damage to public reputation
and goodwill.
In addition, the real estate firm was granted a
temporary restraining order, preliminary injunc-tion
and final injunction to prevent Compass
from poaching and exploiting Modern Spaces’
information and put “an immediate halt to the
substantial and irreparable harm and damages
the defendants have caused and continue to
cause.”
Compensatory damages to Modern Spaces
are to be determined at trial.
/www.qns.com
