Is it a Crime for a Business Owner to Copy its Customer List
My question involves criminal law for the state of: Colorado
My child dances at a dance studio in Colorado. The studio has 2 owners, one opened the studio and the other was taken in as a partner 1 year ago when another original partner wanted to be bought out to leave the business. The new partner gave $10K (cash, with no receipt and no signed operating agreement) to be a "half owner" - at the time, the new partner was living out of state and would have been mearly an investor. Several months ago, the new partner moved her family to be close to the studio in order to take a more active role in the business. Now, she is not a dancer, has no knowledge of dance, etc and the studio currently has little to no assets, is locked in a 2 year building lease and the teachers are not under contract (they are hired per class). The relationship between the two owners soured when the new owner wanted to start firing longtime employees so she could "take over the business aspects" - the two she wanted to fire are not only involved in running the business but are also teachers - being a small, struggling business, it would be impossible to fire those doing dual roles to be replaced by someone doing one role and still have to hire teachers to teach classes.
Anyway, the original owner offered to buy the new partner out for her original 10K - more than generous as the current value of the business is MAYBE $500 (as verified by a business appraiser) but she has become combative and subversive and started doing things like downloading all the email addresses of the studio to her home computer - which the local PD has verified is theft since the data is owned by the LLC and can't be taken, even by an owner, for use offsite.
The new owner is asking for $20K to leave (ie, 100% profit in 1 year from a business that has so little income, the original owner recently took a 2nd job so she could afford to pay the company portion of the employee's taxes) but I've told the owner not only should she not give her a penny more than the $10k but she should make one last offer of $10K and if she doesn't take it, file theft charges and tell the new owner that her original investment is gone and that she can have her 50% of the value of the business, which might come out to about $250.
Thoughts???
Re: Is it a Crime for a Business Owner to Copy its Customer List
Goes to show you that some business owners are so freakin' stupid that they have no business being in business.
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Quoting
Longmont
I've told the owner not only should she not give her a penny more than the $10k but she should make one last offer of $10K and if she doesn't take it, file theft charges and tell the new owner that her original investment is gone and that she can have her 50% of the value of the business, which might come out to about $250.
First of all, if you're not an attorney you have no business telling the owner anything.
However, I do agree with the strategy, except for one thing.
There is no theft. There is no crime writing down a client list of a business that one partly owns. It's not even an actionable civil matter.
What the original owner should be doing is consulting a business attorney to see if there are any grounds at all to stop the second owner from doing what she is doing.
Frankly, I doubt it.
Sure seems like the second owner is a hell of a lot smarter than the original owner.