Un-Sporting Conduct: A lawsuit accuses a Sporting Innovations co-founder of corporate espionage

Sporting Innovations, which develops technological applications for professional sports teams and entertainment groups, fired its co-CEO, Asim Pasha, June 16 and then took him to court a day later. The company says he spent the last year there using its resources to prepare the launch of a competing business.

The firm, affiliated with the owners of Major League Soccer’s Sporting Kansas City, filed suit June 17 in the U.S. District Court of Western Missouri, accusing Pasha and his son, Zain Pasha, of colluding with a New York company to create a similar enterprise and misappropriating Sporting Innovations’ proprietary business information in the process. The 28-page filing also accuses Pasha of running up “tens of thousands” of dollars in charges on company-issued credits cards to fund personal expenses.

Before cofounding Sporting Innovations, in 2011, Asim Pasha worked at Cerner for 13 years. He and Sporting Innovations, a company that has achieved rapid success, have received mostly glowing media coverage.

According to the lawsuit, Pasha hired his son August 1, 2013, as a project manager. Two months later, Sporting Innovations struck a consulting deal with Vernalis Group, a New York technology consulting firm.

By the middle of 2014, the lawsuit claims, Asim Pasha had begun manipulating Sporting Innovations’ computer network so that he could have full administrative access to the system and limit contact between Vernalis and other Sporting Innovations executives. Soon after, Vernalis started submitting “substantially higher” invoices without supporting documentation of the work performed, the lawsuit says.

Sporting Innovations also charges that Pasha, his son and a Vernalis executive named Nader “Nate” Hanafy started planning the launch of a new company, called Knowledge Works. Sporting Innovations says the three tried to conceal what they were doing but got sloppy and left traces of their activities on Sporting Innovations’ network.

Sporting Innovations claims to have recovered online conversations between the Pashas and others, including what appear to be incriminating statements. For example, the lawsuit says Pasha and his son used the chat feature on their Sporting Innovations Gmail account on September 29, 2014. They deleted much of the conversation, except this line: “and then actual expenses we siphon.” Another e-mail exchange days later, quoted in the lawsuit, made reference to a meeting with an unnamed professional sports team that supposedly had a “lot of … interest for KNOWLEDGE WORKS.”

By November 2014, the Pashas apparently had grown nervous about being discovered. According to the lawsuit, Zain Pasha seemed to express dissatisfaction with other Sporting Innovations employees, writing to his father in an electronic chat: “I’m your son. They should be scared to piss me off, but they aren’t.” Asim Pasha responded, according to the lawsuit: “[F]ocus on things that MATTER (win [sic] wink) while keeping sufficietn [sic] visibility here…DONT [sic] get MAD, GET EVEN.”

“Or get ahead,” Zain Pasha replied, according to the lawsuit.

By late February 2015, Sporting Innovations says, Asim Pasha had stopped responding to company e-mails, particularly ones that asked for documentation to justify high-dollar charges on a company-issued credit card. The company says he kept tinkering with administrative access to Sporting Innovations’ computer system as the company tried to regain full control of the network.

Zain Pasha resigned from Sporting Innovations March 16; the lawsuit says he refused an exit interview and never returned his company-owned laptop. Three months later, Asim Pasha was fired, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit adds that Kurtis Ruf, owner of Ruf Strategic Solutions, in Olathe, was aware of what the Pashas were doing and participated in some of their conversations. Ruf is not named as a defendant. His company has done work with Sporting Innovations.

Ruf did not respond to a message seeking comment for this story. Nor did Hanafy, the executive with the New York firm with whom the Pashas allegedly worked.

Zain Pasha couldn’t be reached for comment.

Sporting Innovations is being represented by Kansas City lawyers Kirk May and Jeremy Suhr, of Rouse Hendricks German May. It’s not yet clear whether the defendants have retained legal counsel.