You can prove trade secrets theft cold and still lose the injunction.
That’s the lesson from the 6th Circuit’s recent decision in UEC Holdings v. Hatcher.
Steven Hatcher was VP of the utility division at United Electric, a Kentucky contractor. United Electric fired him in August 2025 for poor performance, dishonesty, and safety violations. Pulling his devices, the company found a month of texts with Troy Kent, owner of competitor Kent Power. Hatcher had shared pricing models and union hiring rates, then deleted the texts before turning in his phone. At the hearing, he didn’t even deny some of what he shared was trade secret information. And when asked on the witness stand whether he’d had Hatcher review the pricing before submitting it to LG&E, Kent admitted: “Yeah, in some way.”
The trial court granted a sweeping injunction anyway. The 6th Circuit vacated it.
There are two reasons why the court vacated the injunction, and both matter to any employer suing a departing exec for stealing trade secrets.
First, fear of competition is not irreparable harm. Kent Power had landed a contract with a shared customer, Louisville Gas & Electric, around the same time Hatcher was sharing the stolen data. But it was work United Electric can’t perform, and Kent Power’s two actual attempts to win business United Electric does perform were both rejected. No lost accounts. No lost revenue. Just a worry that it might happen someday. The court called that a “generalized fear of a larger competitor” and held that fear alone doesn’t support an injunction, no matter how bad the underlying conduct looks.
Second, the remedy has to be tailored to the harm, not just deserved. The trial court also ordered forensic examiners to search “all relevant data sources” on the defendants’ devices for “responsive items.” No named custodians. No defined scope. No protocol protecting the defendants’ own confidential data, or their employees’ health records, from exposure along the way. A verbal “agreement in principle” on safeguards didn’t cut it. Vacated.
Winning on the merits and winning an injunction are two different fights. Trade secrets law makes plaintiffs win both. And just because you can prove a departed employee did something “bad” doesn’t mean you can enjoin him from continuing to do it. You might just have to settle for money damages.
