Aimbridge sues former COO alleging trade secrets theft

PLANO, Texas - Third-party management giant Aimbridge Hospitality is suing fledgling management company Avion Hospitality as well as its president and CEO Robert Burg, alleging Burg schemed to steal trade secrets from Aimbridge to help persuade owners to switch from Aimbridge to Avion management.

Plano, Texas-based Aimbridge filed the lawsuit on Monday in the 471st District Court of Collin County, Texas, and stated that the “scheme” resulted in Avion “reaping tens of millions of dollars in illgotten gains.” Aimbridge is seeking monetary damages.

Burg was COO of Aimbridge until 2021 when he started Plano, Texas-based Avion Hospitality. The lawsuit also stated that Burg left Aimbridge after he was not selected for the open CEO position, which at the time went to Mike Deitemeyer.

In a statement to Hotel Investment Today, an Aimbridge spokesperson said, “Aimbridge is pursuing legal action against a former employee, who launched a management company after gaining access to a significant amount of competitively sensitive information from the company and using it to interfere with management agreements and owner relationships. We are deeply disappointed that a trusted individual would go to such lengths to harm the company to create great personal benefit for himself and his new entity. We initiated the lawsuit to protect our company and our stakeholder groups, including our associates, who are impacted by this breach of trust.”

The lawsuit further claims Avion leadership asked Aimbridge employees to provide “highly confidential reports, data and analytics concerning the financial performance of specific hotels that Avion wished to target” in return for new job opportunities at Avion.

The lawsuit states that in March 2024, Aimbridge discovered emails between Avion leaders and Aimbridge team members. Aimbridge further alleges former Aimbridge regional vice president of operations Faisal Kamal in 2022 provided to Burg proprietary data such as management fees and financial data for five hotels, all of which switched to Avion management.

Alleged data provided also included RevPAR; gross operating profit; breakdowns of revenue, expenses and profits relating to rooms, food and beverage and other property facilities; management fees; and net income, according to the lawsuit.