Walker Manufacturing denies contract violations in response to lawsuit

DENVER — Walker Manufacturing Co., a commercial lawn-mower manufacturing company based in Timnath, has denied that it violated a contract with a European company that earned commissions on sales of Walker mowers in Europe or that it conspired with a former employee of that European company to steal trade secrets.

In September, E-Gate Holding AG filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Denver against Walker and former employee Federica Spano alleging that Walker illegally terminated an agreement that it had with Walker to be the exclusive distributor of Walker mowers in Europe and elsewhere in the world. E-Gate alleged that Spano and Walker conspired to cut E-Gate out of its arrangement and that Walker and Spano illegally downloaded trade secrets from a computer system that E-Gate said was restricted to just two individuals, including Spano, at E-Gate.

In its response to the lawsuit filed Wednesday, Walker denied that Wolfgang Loerli, E-Gate’s owner, had exclusive rights to distribute Walker mowers in Europe “because such rights do not, and have never, existed.” 

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Walker said that Sven Gillfors, owner of a predecessor company that Loerli worked with, served as a manufacturer’s representative for the company but was not a distributor. Walker paid Loerli and his company a 10% commission on sales in Europe but denied that any “exclusive distributorship territory” existed. 

“Walker never entered any relationship with Walker EU or E-Gate giving either rights in perpetuity. Any relationship … was terminable at-will,” the response to the lawsuit said.

Walker also denied that it “schemed with Ms. Spano, or otherwise, to undermine E-Gate or deprive E-Gate of anything.”

It said that it never sought any trade-secret information and that the contents of E-Gate’s Basecamp customer database system was available to multiple Walker employees from as early as 2014 and that the information contained there was not confidential and proprietary.

Spano, in her response to the lawsuit, said that she didn’t conspire with Walker and that she didn’t establish a contractual relationship with Walker until June 2023, which was after her termination from E-Gate. She said that Loerli encouraged her to seek opportunities with Walker.

The case is E-Gate Holding AG v. Walker Manufacturing Co. and Federica Spano, case number 23cv2452 filed Sept. 21, 2023, in U.S. District Court in Denver.