Napoli Shkolnik Files $4.25 Billion Lawsuit Against Lockheed Martin on Behalf of SDR Group

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Napoli Shkolnik filed a $4.25 billion federal lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on behalf of SDR Group (Sustainable Development Resources, LLC), a Puerto Rico-based geophysical surveying and logistics technology company, against Lockheed Martin Corporation and eight co-defendants.

The complaint alleges a multi-year insider scheme in which Lockheed Martin employees, consultants, and certain suppliers acted as trusted advisors to the SDR Group while covertly working to misappropriate the plaintiffs’ proprietary business model to launch a competing aerospace venture, AT2 Aerospace. The defendants allegedly cut SDR Group out of a Lockheed Martin-proposed and negotiated $3.4 billion deal.

“This case exposes a brazen betrayal of trust and a calculated scheme to appropriate a multi-billion-dollar opportunity,” said Hunter J. Shkolnik, founding partner at Napoli Shkolnik. “Our clients poured years of effort, expertise, and significant capital into developing a groundbreaking commercial model, only to have their innovations and business prospects allegedly stolen by Lockheed Martin and its co-conspirators. You cannot invite a counterparty to open its books under confidentiality, take its designs, deal pipeline, and client-funded development, and then lock it out for the benefit of insiders. We are committed to holding every defendant accountable.”

SDR Group spent years developing a first-of-its-kind commercial platform: a multi-sensor geophysical surveying system designed to be deployed aboard Lockheed Martin’s hybrid airship, complete with proprietary sensor integration architecture, a curated supplier pipeline, and a commercialization strategy built around defense offset credits.

In 2018, SDR Group’s technological innovation and commercialization model renewed serious momentum for Lockheed Martin’s hybrid airship platform, rooted in Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-funded research. The SDR Group drew federal attention and engagement from the U.S. Department of Commerce, DARPA and U.S. Geological Survey, as well as significant investment from allied international partners including the UAE.

SDR Group said: “We had the technology, the sovereign partnerships, and the platform to enable faster resource identification and more precise mapping than anything currently deployed, which would have helped break China’s chokehold on U.S. and allied critical mineral security. Our objective with this case is to reinforce that innovation partnerships, particularly those funded with U.S. government grants and touching strategic technologies and national security, are conducted with transparency and respect for the innovators who create them.”

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