Rippling, an HR software company, has launched legal action against its competitor, Deel, alleging a calculated ‘corporate espionage scheme.’ The lawsuit, filed on Monday, accuses Deel of attempting to steal sensitive business data and trade secrets. Deel has refuted the claims.
According to the lawsuit, Rippling asserts that Deel cultivated a ‘spy’ within the company to acquire confidential information in a systematic way. The alleged mole used Rippling’s systems to monitor Deel customers who were considering switching providers. The lawsuit also claims the individual accessed personal details of Rippling employees, allowing Deel to potentially poach key personnel.
To expose the alleged espionage, Rippling staged a ‘honeypot’ test earlier this month. The company informed two members of Deel’s senior leadership team and its outside counsel about a fictional Slack channel called “d-defectors” where Rippling employees were supposedly discussing embarrassing information about Deel. Shortly after, the alleged mole searched for and accessed the decoy channel. Rippling claims this demonstrates Deel’s leadership, or someone acting on their behalf, fed information about the “#d-defectors” channel to the Rippling spy.
Last week, Rippling secured a court order in Ireland, where the alleged mole resides, to preserve information on his phone. However, the individual allegedly misled authorities about the phone’s location and locked himself in a bathroom, which Rippling suggests was to delete evidence.
The complaint seeks to halt the misuse of Rippling’s confidential information and to secure compensation for the harm allegedly caused by Deel.
A Deel spokesperson responded to HR Dive via email, criticizing Rippling’s claims. Deel stated that Rippling is “seeding falsehoods,” attempting to distract from accusations of Rippling’s violation of “sanctions law in Russia.” The spokesperson added, “We deny all legal wrongdoing and look forward to asserting our counterclaims.”
