A national logistics and freight company suspected that proprietary routing-optimization and dynamic-pricing models — the algorithms that determine how freight is consolidated, routed, and priced across its network — had been copied by an insider in the weeks surrounding a resignation. These models were among the company's most closely guarded trade secrets, and there were early indications that the departing employee was moving to a competitor. Outside counsel engaged Law & Forensics to determine, under privilege, what had been taken and by whom.
The Situation
In logistics, the value of a routing-and-pricing model is realized the moment a rival can replicate it: a competitor armed with another carrier's optimization logic can undercut bids and erode margin across the entire network. The company could not afford to act on suspicion alone. It needed a defensible answer to three questions — what proprietary data left the enterprise, through which systems and devices it traveled, and who was responsible — before it could seek injunctive relief, advise its board, or take a position with the suspected new employer.
Our Approach
Law & Forensics treated the matter as a trade-secret and insider-misconduct investigation from the first hour, with the evidentiary standard for litigation governing every step. The team forensically preserved and examined the insider's company-issued workstation and laptop, relevant enterprise platforms, and the cloud-storage and file-sync accounts implicated by the activity. By correlating access logs, file-system and metadata artifacts, removable-media connection records, and cloud-synchronization evidence, the team reconstructed a coherent account of how the routing and pricing models were accessed, staged, and moved beyond the company's perimeter.
Attribution was central. Rather than rest on the presence of files, the team tied specific exfiltration events to a single, named actor by linking device usage, account credentials, and time-correlated activity across the systems involved — building a chain of evidence that would survive challenge rather than merely raise suspicion.
The Impact
The forensic record established both the scope of the misappropriation and a clear attribution to one individual, giving counsel the foundation to pursue injunctive relief and resolve the matter on terms favorable to the company. A Law & Forensics expert served as the testifying witness on the forensic findings, explaining the reconstruction and attribution in plain terms for the court. The analysis and conclusions held up under cross-examination and against the opposing expert — the differentiator the firm is built on: investigative work that is sound not only in the lab, but on the stand.
Related Practice Area
Digital Forensics Services — Trade Secret and IP Investigations; Insider Threat and Employee Misconduct; Expert Testimony and Digital Evidence for Litigation
