Bay Area-based shipping-technology company Flexport has filed a lawsuit alleging that a former manager and director stole trade secrets before launching their rival company, Freightmate. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in San Francisco U.S. District Court, claims that Freightmate was “a product of theft, not ingenuity.”
The suit alleges that former Flexport director Bryan Lacaillade and former manager Yingwei “Jason” Zhao built Freightmate “on information and documents brazenly stolen from Flexport.” Neither Lacaillade nor Zhao have yet commented on the lawsuit.
Zhao joined Flexport in June 2021, and Lacaillade followed a few months later, according to the filing. Lacaillade left the company in April of the previous year, and Zhao departed two months later. Critically, however, the domain name for Freightmate’s website, freightmate.ai, was registered three months before Zhao and Lacaillade quit Flexport, the suit alleges.
“Months before leaving, Zhao and Lacaillade secretly conspired to form a competing company in stealth mode,” the lawsuit documents claim. “Lacaillade left Flexport first to commence the company’s operations, while Zhao remained behind as a secret agent.”
Flexport, founded over a decade ago, aimed to “revolutionize global logistics with 21st-century technologies,” the lawsuit notes. Freightmate, based in Bellevue, Washington, promotes a product called Docmate, intended to automate shipping document handling.
“Docmate is just the start,” Freightmate’s website states. “We’re creating more AI-powered automation to eliminate inefficiencies and bring our vision of zero-touch shipments to life.”
Lacaillade, Freightmate’s CEO, has a background building logistics technology products at companies including Amazon, Flexport, and Geodis, according to the company’s website. The site notes his interests also include hiking, Hawaiian shirts, and classic novels.
Freightmate’s chief operating officer, Zhao, is described as an expert in launching and scaling logistics technology products at Amazon and Flexport. Zhao’s interests include NBA games, naps, and clam digging, according to the company’s website.
Flexport claims in the lawsuit that Zhao also “dug” for proprietary data while with the company. After Lacaillade left the company, Zhao allegedly stole ”tens of thousands of sensitive commercial documents containing Flexport’s trade secrets.” The filing contends Zhao downloaded hundreds, sometimes thousands, of files daily onto personal USB drives or cloud storage, using techniques to conceal his activity.
The lawsuit also claims that Zhao downloaded a key set of Flexport’s copyrighted code shortly before he departed the company, after he and Lacaillade had already founded Freightmate. The product was launched within weeks, the suit alleges.
The suit accuses Lacaillade and Zhao of trade secrets misappropriation and copyright infringement and asks for unspecified damages. Flexport also seeks a court order preventing the two men from disclosing its alleged trade secrets or violating its copyrights.
