The owner of a Nassau County window coverings company has sued The Home Depot for allegedly interfering with the company’s exclusive rights to market and sell products from a Nevada shutter company.
Darren Zuckerman, owner of Custom Coverings Corp. headquartered in Plainview, filed a complaint in Nassau County Supreme Court last week for damages exceeding $5 million against:
- home improvement retailer The Home Depot, headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia
- California-based private equity firm Clearlake Capital Group, L.P.
- Wisconsin-based custom window treatments manufacturer Springs Window Fashions, LLC
- and custom shutters, blinds and shades company Sunburst Shutters Nevada, Inc.
According to the complaint, The Home Depot directed customer leads to other Long Island companies, directly interfering with Custom Coverings’ agreement with Nevada-based Sunburst Shutters that the Plainview company would have sole sale rights within 15 New York counties, including all of New York City and Long Island.
“Business was slowing down. I started looking into things and realized another division was opened in my territory. It forced me to realize that I was dealing with a big company and they were taking advantage of me,” Zuckerman told Newsday.
The complaint also alleges Clearlake Capital Group — a private equity firm that owns Springs Window Fashions, which acquired Sunburst Shutters in 2023 — interfered with Zuckerman’s sale of 50% of his company’s stocks to a Farmingdale flooring and windows installation company by filing a suit against Custom Coverings that caused the transaction to fall through.
Clearlake Capital Group acquired Springs Window Fashions in 2021 for more than $3 billion, according to the suit. Springs, as a subsidiary, later purchased Sunburst Shutters in June 2023 to expand its presence in the shutter market.
The lawsuit alleges, however, that months before the exchange, Sunburst entered its license agreement with Customs Covering Corp. in an effort to become more attractive as an acquisition to Springs Window Fashion.
As Zuckerman was negotiating the sale of stocks in Customs Covering, he notified the three companies of the pending transaction in a show of “good faith,” said attorney Jesse Cotter, of Cotter Law Group in Manhasset, which is representing Custom Coverings.
The contract did not require prior consent from the companies for the sale, Cotter said.
Sunburst Shutters filed a suit in Nevada federal court against Custom Coverings in early February as the sale was being finalized, court records show, with Sunburst alleging the Long Island company had missed sales targets in 2023, 2024 and 2025.
The Nevada suit, filed Feb. 6, is seeking $75,000 from Custom Coverings Corp. and termination of their license agreement because the Long Island company allegedly performed “substantially worse” than “other licensees in similarly situated territories,” and did not follow up on customer leads from The Home Depot and Lowe’s stores.
Custom Coverings has not yet responded to the case in court but Cotter said his client’s conversion rates were “pretty standard.”
“There’s competition. You can buy window coverings on Amazon now,” he said.
A spokesman for The Home Depot declined to comment, citing the pending litigation.
Representatives for the other defendants did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
