Ex-Charter State Government Lobbyist Denies Spilling Trade Secrets

Charter Communications’ lawsuit to prevent Bridger Mahlum, its former director-state government affairs, from going to work for BroadbandMT and spilling Charter’s broadband state funding trade secrets “is baseless and demonstrably false,” said Mahlum’s motion to dismiss Friday (docket 3:23-cv-01106) in U.S. District Court for Connecticut in New Haven.

Charter’s “real motive” is to remove Mahlum from the broadband, equity, access and deployment (BEAD) program rulemaking process, said Mahlum’s motion to dismiss. Charter also seeks to deprive BroadbandMT’s members of Mahlum’s lobbying skills “to their disadvantage at a crucial time” of the initial rulemaking stages of the BEAD grant program, it said.

Charter brought its action against Mahlum “on the cusp” of the rulemaking process “when all service providers can negotiate and lobby in the public to obtain favorable rules and regulations that will apply to service providers’ applications” seeking BEAD grants. The program will award $629 million to providers to develop broadband and related services, it said.

Mahlum’s assurances through his counsel that he hasn’t worked for BroadbandMT since Aug. 31 and won’t return to the job until the court resolves Charter’s motion for a preliminary injunction against him prompted Charter on Friday to file a motion to withdraw its request for a temporary restraining order barring its former executive’s continuing employment there. Charter reserves all “pertinent arguments in the event Mahlum’s representations prove to be inaccurate or he later retracts or otherwise contradicts his representations,” said the motion.

Mahlum, “as a threshold issue,” seeks to dismiss Charter’s “unverified” complaint because the court lacks in personam jurisdiction, said his motion. In the alternative, he seeks a change of venue to U.S. District Court for Montana where BroadbandMT resides, it said. Because Charter hasn’t met its “burden of persuasion,” its TRO or preliminary injunction isn’t warranted, it said.

Charter hasn’t made a “clear showing with specific facts” that irreparable harm, including “actual and imminent harm,” will occur absent the TRO or injunction, said Mahlum’s motion to dismiss. Charter also won’t likely succeed on the merits because its breach of contract claim is “inapplicable” to both Mahlum and BroabandMT, which isn’t a direct competitor to Charter, it said.

There’s also no evidence that Mahlum has solicited Charter’s customers, or violated a nondisclosure agreement, “by disclosing Charter’s alleged trade secrets,” said Mahlum’s motion to dismiss. Charter’s Connecticut Uniform Trade Secrets Act claim fails because Charter’s other businesspeople, and not Mahlum, were responsible for Charter’s grant application process, it said. Mahlum wasn’t “apprised” of the process, it said. He also didn’t use any trade secrets at either Charter or BroadbandMT in his lobbying efforts, “so he has not misappropriated them,” it said.