In a filing in the Northern District of Georgia’s United States District Court, Wesco is demanding a jury trial in its complaint against Eckart LLC and six executives, accusing them of “raiding its workforce, breached restrictive covenants, misappropriated AED/Wesco trade secrets, tortiously interfered with AED/Wesco customer and supplier relationships, and violated other laws”.
The 41-page suit, file last December 1, does not specify a specific amount of damages sought, but says it is seeking “compensatory, consequential, punitive, and exemplary damages, disgorgement of Defendants’ unjust enrichment, attorney’s fees, injunctive and other equitable relief, costs, litigation expenses, and all other legal and equitable relief this Court deems proper.”
Eckart and the six defendants filed a motion to dismiss on February 9, 2026.
Wesco acquired Atlanta Electrical Distributors LLC (AED) in 2016 and merged it completely under the Wesco brand last year. Wesco claims in its lawsuit that AED’s former owners, Kester and Kevin Black, played a role in luring two high-level managers and two sales representatives from AED to Eckart. In the lawsuit, Wesco says Kester and Kevin Black wanted to create “AED 2.0” at Eckart by hiring defendants Jon Kevin Black, Luke Beverly, Christopher Eric Granger, Matthew Black, and James Clint Spratlin.
The suit also claims Kester and Kevin Black, while still employed by Wesco, were engaging in conversations with Eckart about expanding operations in direct competition with AED in the Southeast, and claims the Blacks promised Eckart they could leverage their personal relationships with Wesco customers, suppliers, and managers.
The suit claims, “Eckart, Kester Black, and Kevin Black lured former AED/WESCO managers including Beverly and Granger (directly and/or through intermediaries) to run the daily operations of Eckart’s new Georgia locations based on promises that, in addition to their employment and related compensation, they too would share in the bounty of an eventual sale of Eckart or ‘AED 2.0,’ just as they had each received significant transaction bonuses from the sale of AED to WESCO. Based on those inducements and acting in concert with Eckart, Kester, Kevin Black, Beverly, and Granger directly and/or indirectly through intermediaries solicited and recruited dozens of AED/WESCO’s employees to join Eckart, both during and after they left AED/WESCO, in violation of their restrictive covenants, fiduciary duties, and duties of loyalty.
Although Defendants have taken (and are still taking) steps to cover their tracks, AED/WESCO’s investigation has so far revealed that: (a) some of the individual Defendants (including Kester and Kevin Black) began secretly working with Eckart when they were still employed by and still had access to AED/WESCO’s trade secrets and other proprietary business information; and some of the individual Defendants (including Granger, Matthew Black, and Spratlin) misappropriated AED/WESCO’s trade secrets and other proprietary business information on their way out the door so that they and Eckart could hit the ground running in Georgia.”
According to its website, Eckart currently has 5 locations in the Atlanta area.
The lawsuit claims more than thirty Wesco employees who worked at AED left the company to work for Eckart. It states, “As a result of Defendants’ creation of a competing venture (which Eckart could not have done without the individual Defendants’ assistance), raid of AED/WESCO’s workforce, interference with AED/WESCO’s customer and supplier relationships, and other misconduct described herein in breach of their RC Agreements, AED/WESCO has shut down some of its Georgia Branches, suffered significant harm to its customer and supplier relationships, lost (and will likely continue to lose) millions of dollars in sales to Eckart, had to hire and train replacement employees, and incurred other mounting losses.”
Eckart filed a 15 page Motion to Dismiss on Monday, February 9, saying Wesco’s claim “fails to state a claim where the plaintiff does not plead ‘enough facts to state a claim to relief that is plausible on its face.'” It adds that the case against the individuals listed in the lawsuit should be dismissed, stating, “There are no facts alleged that would create a unique situation that might give rise to a special confidential relationship between an employer and employee concerning a particular transaction. Instead, the Complaint merely alleges a traditional employer-employee relationship which is insufficient to establish a fiduciary duty.”
The motion adds, “the Complaint contains only vague and conclusory allegations that Eckart was the one who procured these breaches. Tellingly, absent from the Complaint are any factual assertions that Eckart ‘advised, counseled, persuaded, commanded, or in any other way procured the Individual Defendants to breach their fiduciary duties.’”
Eckart has asked the court to dismiss 5 of the counts listed in Wesco’s lawsuit.
tED magazine reached out to Eckart about the lawsuit, and they told us they are not commenting on it.
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