Federal prosecutors in Manhattan have asked a judge to permit the government to intervene in a civil suit involving allegations of corporate espionage, and to put a halt to discovery proceedings for six months, according to HotelNewsNow.com ^[1].

Preet Bharara, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, filed the motion ^[2] last Friday. The motion says that such a step is necessary “in order to protect the substantial public interests at stake in a substantially related, overlapping criminal investigation” of one of the parties to the civil suit.

The suit was brought by Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide against Hilton Hotels Corp. and two Hilton executives who formerly worked for Starwood. Starwood alleges that the two executives stole massive amounts of electronic files after being recruited to Hilton in May and June 2008.

The government says that the facts and circumstances that underlie the  civil suit form the basis for its criminal investigation of Hilton Hotels and the two executives — Ross Klein and Amar Lalvani.

According to the federal government’s filing, the defendants have agreed to the request for a six-month stay in discovery, but that the plaintiff — Starwood Hotels — has not.