A Pulaski County jury awarded $14 million on Friday to Chase Global Services of Reno in a trade secrets case against a Little Rock firm that had won a $65 million contract from the state of Nevada in 2018.
In a lawsuit filed in 2019, Chase Global accused Protech Solutions Inc. of stealing its trade secrets to win the contract for software services for Nevada’s child support enforcement unit.
“Chase Global Services is very happy to be vindicated after seven long years,” one of Chase Global’s attorneys, Andrew King of Kutak Rock LLP’s Little Rock office, told Arkansas Business via email. “Protech was a nightmare defendant, and on Friday the 13th, the jury delivered a wake-up call.
“Instead of facing the facts, Protech hid money and clung to foolish delay tactics,” he said.
Protech said in a statement to Arkansas Business that it plans to appeal.
“While we respect the judicial process, we are disappointed and disagree with today’s verdict,” the company said in the statement. “We remain committed to the highest levels of integrity and honesty in all of our work, as we continue to create solutions that make an impact on the lives of the people we serve.”
Attorneys Scott Richardson, Bart Calhoun and Brittany Webb of McDaniel Wolff of Little Rock represented Protech.
Pulaski County Circuit Court Judge Cara Connors presided over the case.
The roots of the case started in 2016 when the state of Nevada initially sought bids on a software services project. Chase Global and Protech thought they would win the job by working together, with Protech being the contractor and Chase Global as the subcontractor with a minimum of 20% of the project’s workload.
Over the course of 18 days, Chase Global contributed meaningful sections to the bid. Chase Global had worked on projects for Nevada’s child support enforcement unit. And Protech had a long-term contract to run Arkansas’ child support information system and did similar work for other states.
Chase Global said it shared confidential information with Protech that was used to submit a bid for the project in 2016. But before the bid applications were open, Nevada withdrew the request for proposals amid financing issues and returned the unopened bids to the companies.
A year later, Nevada issued another bid request for the project.
Chase Global said in court filings that it tried to talk to Protech’s leaders about a potential joint response to that second bid request, but didn’t hear back from the company.
Chase Global said that it didn’t know if Protech would make another team bid or even any new bid at all. Chase Global said that it couldn’t “in good faith” bid on the project or team up with another company to submit a proposal because it felt it had an agreement with Protech.
Meanwhile, Protech went ahead and submitted a bid — without Chase Global but with information that was part of their joint bid, according to court documents. And it won.
Chase Global then wanted to be a subcontractor on the project.
“Protech won the bid based on information it received from Chase Global, and then concocted a ‘disapproval letter’ scheme to cover its tracks and blame the State of Nevada for Chase’s exclusion,” the court documents said.
One of Protech’s attorneys in a statement provided to Arkansas Business in 2024, said Protech’s agreement with Chase Global Services expired after Nevada pulled the first bid request. Protech later “received information indicating that Chase Global Service’s reputation with the State of Nevada was not what Protech had been led to believe.”
But Chase Global said in court filings that Protech’s plan was for the state of Nevada to disapprove of Chase Global being a subcontractor on the project, and then Protech could blame the state for not hiring Chase Global.
But the state wasn’t willing to disapprove of Chase Global because it was in good standing with Nevada and it considered the company’s work to be “excellent,” the court filing said.
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