After a long and hard-fought jury trial featuring more than a half-dozen law firms, the fragrance and flavor giant Givaudan SA lost an $80 million trade secrets case last week against a former employee and his new company.
A federal jury in Trenton returned a verdict on Thursday that perfumer James Krivda and his new company Mane USA Inc. didn’t misappropriate Givaudan’s proprietary fragrance formulas. The defense successfully argued that Krivda has been coming up with unique fragrances since joining Mane, rather than stealing ideas from his former company.
