A Manhattan federal judge on Monday declined to dismiss a lawsuit claiming that an asset management firm had illegally accessed the computer and two hard drives of a former senior director.

U.S. Judge John Keenan of the Southern District of New York on Monday said in a 21-page opinion that the federal action could proceed parallel to a state court case alleging that Paul Iavovacci had been improperly terminated from his position at Brevet Capital Management.

Brevet, a privately owned firm that invests in public equity markets, had asked Keenan to dismiss the lawsuit on abstention grounds, citing “significant overlap” between the two cases, which both stemmed from the “very same set of factual allegations” that led to his firing in 2016.