Rippling sues Deel, Deel denies 'all legal wrongdoing',Slack is the main witness

Previously

(88 points, 8 hours ago, 10 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43388133

(32 points, 7 hours ago, 3 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43388769

This is wild

-> The dramatic 50-page complaint alleges racketeering, misappropriation of trade secrets, tortious interference, unfair competition, and aiding & abetting breach of fiduciary duty. The lawsuit is largely centered on an employee whom Rippling claims was working as a spy for Deel.

->Ripplings’ lawyers note that[...] “Rippling employees’ Slack activity is ‘logged,’”, “meaning every time a user views a document through Slack, accesses a Slack channel, sends a message, or conducts searches on Slack, that activity (and the associated user) is recorded in a log file.”

-> It was a sudden spike in that logged activity, and specifically how it centered around the word “Deel” that raised a flag to the (HR?) team that tracks that activity.

-> “The channels D.S. previewed during this period have no connection to his payroll operations job responsibilities,” states the complaint. “What they do relate to, however, are all aspects of Rippling’s business development, sales, and customer retention strategies—the most sensitive of the Company’s Sales and Marketing Trade Secrets and confidential business information—with a particular emphasis on a single competitor, Deel.

Complete with a setting up a honeypot in a sting operation

-> According to the lawsuit, Rippling set up a “honeypot” to prove out its suspicions. The company created a fake Slack channel and shared its name with key Deel execs, then sat back to see if D.S. searched for it. He did, claims the lawsuit.

And then the alleged spy hid in the bathroom to avoid handing over his phone.

-> Things got very heated afterward, per the filing, which says that when an independent solicitor attempted to seize D.S.’s phone by court order, D.S. escaped to the bathroom, “locking the door behind him and refusing to come out, despite the independent solicitor’s repeated warnings.”

-> Rather than comply, it goes on, “D.S. was heard ‘doing something’ on his phone by the independent solicitor, who also heard D.S. flush the toilet— suggesting that D.S. may have attempted to flush his phone down the toilet rather than provide it for inspection.” It did not recover the phone later.

I really wonder how this one is going to play out