UPS won’t let posting of its secret business plans slide

UPS suspects that one of its employees obtained secret business plans for its aircraft fleet and then posted them online, the shipping giant said in court records.

In a federal lawsuit filed this week, UPS said its strategic plans are highly confidential, and that a PowerPoint presentation containing the trade secrets was created and intended only for senior executives.

“At some point, an unknown UPS pilot wrongfully obtained a copy of the PowerPoint,” UPS states in its lawsuit. Then, in late September, “the unknown UPS pilot posted statements on an online discussion forum about UPS’ confidential strategic plans regarding its aircraft.”

Now, the company is taking steps to identify whoever was responsible for posting the strategic plans on an internet message board frequented by pilots.

A judge this week gave the company permission to subpoena records from Yahoo Holdings Inc. for emails from a specific Yahoo.com email address. It’s requesting all emails sent to and from the address since Aug. 31.

UPS also plans to subpoena records from the Louisville, Kentucky-based Independent Pilots Association in order to get names, IP addresses and other information about people who made comments about the plans on the union’s internet forum. It’s also seeking information to identify anyone who clicked on a link to view the information.

A spokesman for the pilots association said it will resist UPS’ effort to get information about its members. “We have no reason to believe that any UPS union pilot was involved in the theft,” Brian Gaudet, a spokesman for the Independent Pilots Association, said in an email Friday.

The lawsuit blames “an unknown UPS pilot” for taking the information, but UPS spokesman Steve Gaut said Friday it doesn’t know for certain who.