Confluent, Inc. v. Slower, LLC
- Susan Van Keulen
- 5:24-cv-04447
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 7
In Confluent v. Slower, Judge Van Keulen granted in part and denied in part Slower’s motion to dismiss three claims.
Confluent may amend the challenged claims, while Slower may respond and later renew its CUTSA-preemption arguments.
What happened
In Confluent, Inc. v. Slower, LLC, Confluent sued Slower over agreements involving Confluent’s cloud services and software products. The complaint asserted claims for breach of contract, interference with prospective economic advantage, trade-secret misappropriation, unfair business practices, and federal unfair competition.
Slower asked the court to dismiss the interference, trade-secret, and unfair-business-practices claims for insufficient pleading. The court found factual deficiencies in the interference and trade-secret allegations, including inadequate details about the alleged customer poaching and the claimed customer-list trade secrets. It allowed Confluent to amend. The court rejected Slower’s argument that the claims were preempted by California’s trade-secret law at this stage, without prejudice to raising that argument later.
Judge Susan Van Keulen’s order states that the motion to dismiss was granted in part and denied in part, and that the challenged claims could be amended. Confluent could file an amended complaint by February 11, 2025; the order did not dismiss the breach-of-contract or federal unfair-competition claims because Slower had not challenged them.
The detailed version
- Confluent, Inc. v. Slower, LLC · No. 5:24-cv-04447
- Susan Van Keulen
- Jan. 28, 2025
Background
Confluent alleged that it develops and sells subscriptions to cloud services and software data-streaming products. Slower entered into a Reseller Agreement and a Partner Agreement with Confluent. Confluent filed five causes of action: breach of contract; intentional interference with prospective economic advantage; violation of the California Uniform Trade Secrets Act (CUTSA); violation of California Business and Professions Code § 17200; and federal unfair competition under the Lanham Act.
Slower moved under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(6), which permits dismissal for failure to state a legally sufficient claim, targeting only the second, third, and fourth causes of action. The motion did not challenge the breach-of-contract or Lanham Act claims. The court applied the rule that a complaint must allege enough facts to make relief plausible, while generally treating well-pleaded allegations as true at this stage.
Second Cause of Action: Intentional Interference
The court found that Confluent had not adequately alleged an independently wrongful act, an element of its claim for intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. Confluent alleged, on information and belief, that Slower coordinated with “Competitor A” to poach “Customer C,” disclosed confidential customer information, and sent misleading emails to customers. The court found that the complaint did not provide enough facts about how Slower and Competitor A worked together, how Slower dealt with third parties in a way that harmed Confluent, or the basis for believing that similar misleading communications were sent to Customer C.
The court denied without prejudice Slower’s argument that the interference claim was preempted by CUTSA. The court explained that preemption depends on the facts alleged and that it would be premature to decide the issue before Confluent amended its deficient allegations. The court also denied Slower’s motion on other grounds not addressed by the preceding discussion.
Third Cause of Action: CUTSA
The court dismissed the trade-secret claim with leave to amend. Although the parties agreed that a customer list can receive trade-secret protection in appropriate circumstances, the court held that Confluent had not described the alleged customer lists with enough particularity to distinguish them from generally known information or to identify the boundaries of the claimed secret.
The court also found that the complaint did not provide specific facts about Confluent’s alleged investment in developing the customer lists or explain how the lists derived value from not being generally known to the public. The court characterized those allegations as conclusory.
Fourth Cause of Action: California Business and Professions Code § 17200
Slower’s only stated basis for dismissing the § 17200 claim was CUTSA preemption. For the same reasons discussed in connection with the interference claim, the court denied that argument without prejudice to Slower raising it later, after Confluent amended its trade-secret claim.
Disposition
The conclusion states that Slower’s motion to dismiss the second, third, and fourth causes of action was granted with leave to amend. The order also states at the outset that the motion was granted in part and denied in part. Confluent was permitted to file a First Amended Complaint by February 11, 2025. If it did so, Slower’s response would be due fourteen days later, and any renewed motion to dismiss would follow the normal briefing schedule. The order set an initial case-management conference for April 8, 2025.
Read the full 7-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.