Titan Concrete sues Jenna Concrete for $2M

New Rochelle-based Titan Concrete Inc. claims in a $2 million lawsuit that a competitor got access to its proprietary information under the guise of offering to buy it out.

The competitor “never intended to acquire Titan at all,” the company said in a complaint filed in Westchester Supreme Court, “but rather, intended to use the confidential information for its own benefit and to Titan”™s detriment.”

Titan alleges wrongdoing by U.S. Concrete Inc. and its Jenna Concrete Corp. and USC-Jenna LLC subsidiaries. The complaint was filed on Aug. 3, the same day that Titan and its owner, Michael V. Saccente Jr. of Mohegan Lake, responded to charges by USC-Jenna that they had refused to pay $2.3 million for loads of concrete.

Titan supplies ready-mix concrete in New York City and Westchester and Putnam counties. It has offices in the J.A. Mahlstedt Lumber and Coal Co. building in downtown New Rochelle and operates facilities on Fordham Road in the Bronx and in Carmel, New York.

From 2013 to May 2018, Titan leased space from Jenna and bought sand, rock and water from Jenna”™s Bronx yard next to the Harlem River.

A year ago, according to Titan”™s complaint, U.S. Concrete, an $888 million publicly traded company based in Euless, Texas, asked Titan if it were interested in being acquired.

The companies signed a confidentiality agreement, and Titan provided proprietary information.

No hard offer to buy was ever made.

Titan was using a computer system owned by Anthony Valente, a Jenna officer and employee, for dispatching trucks. Valente knew where Titan”™s trucks were at all times, the complaint stated, and used that information to outbid Titan on several projects.

Titan has accused Jenna and U.S. Concrete of tortious interference, breach of confidentiality, fraud and computer fraud. It is asking for $2 million in damages and an injunction ordering its competitors not to use its proprietary information.

But if Titan is found liable in Jenna”™s claim for $2.3 million for not paying for concrete, Saccente said that claim should be offset by Titan”™s claim for $2 million.

A lawyer representing Jenna, Anthony J. Tavormina, did not immediately respond to telephone and email requests for comment on Titan”™s allegations.

Titan is represented by Jason S. Samuels and Joseph J. Sawczak of Farrell Fritz PC in Uniondale.