Bay Area tech firm claims analyst used her vacation to download trade secrets, after showing ‘insubordinate work attitude’
Green Grid’s leaders claim they were mystified by analyst Zihan Yuan’s sudden drop in performance, but what she allegedly did next — downloading “highly confidential” company files while on vacation — led the San Ramon industrial-technology firm to file a lawsuit against her.
The company, focused on infrastructure protection, vegetation management, and wildfire prevention, hired Yuan as an associate business analyst in April 2024, according to the lawsuit filed Friday by Green Grid in Oakland U.S. District Court.
Green Grid alleges Yuan used a requested personal leave to access files containing budgets and forecasting information, product plans, bills, vendor lists, systems-engineering documents, employee and job-candidate resumes, and internal operations policies — none of which was relevant to her job at the company. It’s unclear what Yuan might have done with the information she allegedly accessed.
The company is seeking unspecified damages, and a court order forcing Yuan to return the allegedly downloaded information.
Yuan, whose LinkedIn profile and university records indicate she holds a master’s degree in analytics from Columbia University and a bachelor of science degree from Baylor University, could not be reached for comment Monday. It was unclear whether a lawyer was representing her in the case.
The lawsuit said Yuan initially performed well, and she received a promotion to data-and-innovation analyst in January.
However, in April of this year, “Yuan began exhibiting uncharacteristic performance issues,” the lawsuit claimed. “Among other things, she began neglecting her core duties, and at times demonstrated a poor and insubordinate work attitude.” Though given “direct feedback on her poor performance,” Yuan “offered no explanation,” the lawsuit said. “Green Grid leadership was puzzled at the sudden decline,” the lawsuit said.
Upon Yuan’s request, she was granted a week’s leave starting June 18 but failed to return to work as scheduled June 26, the lawsuit said.
The “vast majority” of downloads occurred between 11:30 p.m. on the last day of Yuan’s time off and 8:00 a.m. on the
day she was to return to work, the lawsuit claimed.
On June 27, company bosses called Yuan into the office and “confronted her with evidence of her unauthorized downloads,” the lawsuit alleged.
“At first Yuan claimed that she had downloaded the files onto her Green Grid-issued laptop but then admitted that the files would not be found on her laptop and had been downloaded to some other locations,” the lawsuit claimed.
Yuan “resigned immediately” and left the company’s offices, the lawsuit said.
“To this day,” the lawsuit alleged, “she has not returned Green Grid’s confidential files.”