SteriCycle wins initial order in competitive bid blocking rival medical waste firm
By Mike Scarcella
(Reuters) – Stericycle Inc won a court order in Chicago federal court, temporarily blocking another medical waste disposal and document shredding company from “falsely” claiming any affiliation with Stericycle and contacting its customers.
U.S. District Judge Mary Rowland’s March 7 order said Stericycle, which owns document shredding company Shred-It, “may prevail on the merits” in its unfair-competition and trade-secret theft lawsuit against Allied Holdings Group LLC.
Stericycle filed the lawsuit Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The judge fixed April 11 as the next date of hearing in the case.
Illinois-based Stericycle, which had revenue of $2.7 billion last year, sued Allies seeking unspecified monetary damages and permanent injunctive relief. The lawsuit alleges Allied employees pretended to be tied to Stericycle to get unnamed clients to leave the company.
Stericycle had about 148,000 regulated waste disposal clients in the U.S. last year, the company said.
A lawyer for Utah-based Allied at Hall Prangle & Schoonveld and a representative for the company did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment Thursday.
Vedder Price’s attorney for Stericycle and a company spokeswoman also did not immediately comment.
The lawsuit states that Allied has brought on several Stericycle employees in recent years.
The complaint alleges that Allied is conducting an “unfair competition campaign designed to steal Stericycle’s customers by deceiving those customers into Allied’s affiliation or association with Stericycle.”
The lawsuit did not name Stericycle clients but said “Customer B” and “Customer C” were “large, long-term customers of Stericycle, collectively responsible for millions in annual fees owed to Stericycle.”
The complaint states that it was not publicly known that Stericycle had contracts with two unnamed clients, an indication that the company’s proprietary business information was allegedly being misused.
The case is Stericycle Inc. v. Allied Holdings Group LLC, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 1:23-cv-01322.
For Stericycle: Jonathan Reinisch and James Garvey of Vedder Price
For allies: Eric Schoonveld and Matthew Kaminsky of Hall Prangle & Schoonveld
(Reporting by Mike Scarcella; Editing by Leigh Jones)
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