"Clone a successful US company before it got to the European market."

This is really a different case though.

The German VC is saying: "Food delivery is working in the US, they've validated the model + EU VC's will now get behind that, so 'do that like they are'.

They are more or less competing, not exactly cloning.

Copying API's is a whole other level.

Literally copying docs etc. is another level.

The thing is - the small company may have some power here. The bigger company does not want an ugly, permanent lawsuit hanging over them. With the screen-scraping and blatant copying, it's going to make it seem, at least popularly bad, and possibly add emotive impetus to a judge. The copier cannot say with a straight face that they were not copying to a judge.