A Texas court has granted a temporary injunction preventing BamBams (asi/38228) and Visual Promotions – the supplier it acquired in July – from engaging in certain print-on-demand production and sales in the months leading up to a trial scheduled for March 2024. The trial will determine whether Louis Massaro, general manager of Visual Promotions, took proprietary information and trade secrets from his previous position as president of SameDayPOD and Promoful (asi/79982).

The injunction, which was reached after the involved parties negotiated in District Court in Fort Bend County, TX, notes that plaintiffs SameDay POD LLC and Pivot & Scale LLC, acting as successor in interest to Gennex Media LLC, believe they will suffer “imminent and irreparable harm” due to the loss of “confidential and proprietary information.”

The court enjoined BamBams and Visual Promotions from using SameDay’s “print on demand production methods, customer pricing, vendor lists and identities, vendor pricing, and products ordered by customers;” “utilizing any barcode/scan-based process or system for print on demand manufacturing or production;” ordering ink or pre-treat products from SameDay’s vendor, Eastern Tech Company; and doing any print-on-demand production of apparel or pennants, or print-on-demand sublimation of keychains, ornaments, lanyards, face masks or stickers. The temporary injunction also prevents the company from providing print-on-demand services for e-commerce companies Zazzle, Gelato and Swagup.

However, the temporary injunction does not affect BamBams and Visual Promotions’ ability to fulfill bulk orders, which it defines as 50 pieces or more, of any kind. Nor does it prevent the suppliers from engaging in any print-on-demand business it had been doing prior to Massaro’s employment with Visual Promotions.

Raymond Panneton, a lawyer representing Massaro, BamBams, Visual Promotions and BamBams’ President and CEO Dan Taylor, said it’s important to understand that the case is in its infancy, that the court never took evidence or made an affirmative ruling on this issue, and that his clients dispute the facts of the injunction.

“From Mr. Massaro’s position, no trade secrets were taken, and we believe the noncompete has issues,” Panneton told ASI Media, noting that Massaro’s noncompete agreement had no geographic restrictions, whereas Texas law requires such agreements to include reasonable limitations regarding time, geographical area and scope of activity.

“From BamBams’ and Visual Promotions’ perspective, they were certainly in this space doing this type of work well before Mr. Massaro came on board,” Panneton said. “Nothing in here affects what the defendants were doing prior to Mr. Massaro’s employment. … There’s nothing wrong with businesses expanding.”

Promo products industry entrepreneur AK Kurji, founder of SameDayPOD, told ASI Media that his company initiated the legal matter “to protect our valuable proprietary processes and customer information.” He declined to comment further on the case at this time, noting that he had to “prioritize the integrity of the legal proceedings.”

“Once the case reaches its natural conclusion, I will gladly comment further,” Kurji added.

Kurji is the founder of Promoful (formerly PMGOA), which is part of Scalable Brands, an e-commerce-focused venture capital firm that operates in the promotional products and print-on-demand industries and includes SameDayPOD under its umbrella.

Kurji previously pleaded guilty in 2019 to charges of conspiring to fix prices on promotional products and spent eight months in jail. In 2021, Kurji’s company Gennex Media LLC reached a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission over allegations that it made false, misleading or unsupported advertising claims that products it was selling were all or virtually all made in the United States. Kurji has since spoken openly about his past, saying there were valuable lessons he learned through mistakes made as a young entrepreneur that he’s tried to share with others.

A jury trial in the trade secrets matter is set for March 27, 2024.