- Deel ramps up its legal battle by submitting fresh letters in an Irish court requiring unredacted witness affidavits from competitor Rippling.
- Deel questions Rippling's payments to former employee O'Brien after terminating him for spying.
- Both Deel and Rippling accuse one another of corporate spying in an increased legal fight.
In the ongoing legal dispute with rival HR tech startup Rippling, Deel has launched a fresh legal attack.
Deel demanded data from Rippling in a series of letters sent to the Irish court. Despite not filing a formal motion at the same time as sending the letters, reports state that Deel is going to do so.
In one letter, Deel requested hidden copies of witness statements, including the one written by Keith O'Brien, a former employee of Rippling. According to the declaration made public by Rippling, O'Brien confessed in an Irish court to being a spy for Deel.
In March, Rippling filed a lawsuit against Deel, mostly based on the illicit activity claims, alleging unfair competition, unlawful interference, and misuse of confidential information.
Since then, Deel has retaliated, laying out its own accusations against Rippling while simultaneously seeking to have Rippling's lawsuit rejected on a number of grounds, including jurisdiction. For example, Deel claims that Rippling was also trying to spy on him.
Deel is referring to an affidavit from Vanessa Wu, a former general counsel of Rippling, in the letters that were made public on Monday.
The majority of the affidavit detailed Wu's recollections of purported spy-related incidents as well as her analysis of numerous communications exchanged between the attorneys for the two parties.
Wu, however, also stated in his testimony that Rippling fired O'Brien and gave him termination compensation in return for his signing a non-sue agreement, as Deel notes.
According to the affidavit, Wu further stated that Rippling and O'Brien had made a second agreement in which Rippling "agreed to contribute towards Mr. O'Brien's costs of these proceedings and to pay his reasonable out-of-pocket and legal expenses in connection with the cooperation to be provided under that agreement."
Deel wants the court to order Rippling to make full, unredacted copies of both of those agreements available if Rippling does not comply with the letters' requirements.
It aims to convey to anyone who will listen how uncommon it is for a worker who was fired for good reason to end up working for the same company again as a paid witness.
Edited by Annette George
