A small startup company has suffered the following:

The company's physical assets, and data, has been seized by one of its officers who will not surrender it.

The assets and data are being used to create a new company, which will replace the existing one in some of its sales situations. Contracts worth over $10,000,000 are at stake.

The company had intellectual property going through the patent process and a "patent pending" had been issued by the Patent and Trademark Office. The company had registered its trademarks. The company also had an industrial design. All of these, including the necessary engineering documents, have been stolen and are being used.

The company is composed of two parts: a Canadian parent company, with design engineers and the CEO, and two shareholders (the CEO and another investor); and a California-based subsidiary, owned 60% by the Canadian parent and 40% by the Chief Technologist located there and running the manufacturing plant in California. It is the C T O who seized the assets and has formed the new company.

How can the CEO at the Canadian parent deal with the apparent theft of the company's assets, its data, its intellectual property, its customers, and the breach of fiduciary duty performed by the C T O? You should research the law, including cases, on the Internet. You may assume that if a lawsuit is involved it will be brought under Canadian law; if you believe a criminal complaint should be made, it will need to be brought in California as well as in British Columbia in Canada.