Iowa Veterinary Specialties has filed a lawsuit against four of its employees.

Iowa State University bought Iowa Veterinary Specialties in Des Moines for $4.6 million in January.

Surgeons Steven Reimer and Stan Wagner, Internist Derek Nestor and Operations Manager Paul Hanika were allegedly secretly launching a new firm and taking confidential customer and financial information with them, then deleting files before leaving the clinic.

They left Iowa Veterinary Specialties after they had the customer and financial information, leased space for their clinic and had created a business plan, according to the lawsuit.

They left on Feb. 1, the same day the sale closed.

The lawsuit alleges that they met with vendors, sent out an ad soliciting customers and claims Nestor ran a “Killdisk” program that destroys information contained on his computer.

The lawsuit accused Reimer, Wagner and Nestor of violating contracts that bar them from working in veterinary medicine for at least two years in the Des Moines area after leaving.

Hainka conspired with others to launch a competing business while still getting paid by the firm, according to the lawsuit.

“The university has not added any staff.  The majority of the staff working at IVS were offered the opportunity to continue to work for ISU-IVC.  The clinic  continues to operate and provide services in the Des Moines metropolitan area and will continue to do so,” said Warren Madden, vice president of business and finance, in an e-mail.