Custom-Publishing Exec Ordered to Pay $4.6M for Business Violations

GREENVILLE, SC—Nov. 21, 2012—A federal judge ordered a local businessman and his company to pay more than $4.6 million in damages and costs for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of fiduciary duty, and other misconduct related to the sale of his former Greenville employer in 2008.

The order against J. Adam Shirley and his company, Prism Content Solutions, stems from the sale of the assets of Cox CustomMedia, a publishing company that had employed him as a senior sales executive. Shortly after the sale, Shirley abruptly resigned from CustomMedia to form a competing company and was accused by Cox’ acquirer, Uhlig LLC, of taking trade secrets, customer lists, thousands of computer files and other CustomMedia intellectual property in breach of his employment agreement and South Carolina law.