Rippling calls Deel ‘a criminal syndicate’ and claims 4 other competitors were spied on, too

Summary

The fight between HR tech startups has heated up another notch this week as Rippling on Thursday filed an 84-page amended complaint in its lawsuit against Deel. The complaint accuses Deel of targeting, infiltrating, and compromising four other competitors, in addition to Rippling. The revised complaint doesn’t name all of the four other alleged victims, except cryptocurrency-based tax and payroll compliance company, Toku. Toku is suing its competitor LiquiFi also alleging corporate espionage, and that Deel was involved. The complaint alleges that “Victim-3 is a startup accelerator that previously partnered with Deel.” The complaint doesn’t name, or even imply, who that is. (Y Combinator backed both Rippling and Deel but there’s no indication this refers to the VC firm. YC has not yet responded to our request for comment.) The complaint also says that there are one or more additional victims who are “one or more major competitors of Deel” in the employer of record market. A source familiar with the investigation believes that more witnesses will soon come forward at these other companies to offer details. Deel did not immediately comment. We will update this story with its response once it does. Rippling’s amended suit also alleges that Deel’s CEO Alex Bouaziz was the direct mastermind of it all, sharing screenshots of messages as its evidence. And, although this is a civil suit, Rippling is now implying that this could be a criminal matter. “This case is about a criminal syndicate that operated from the shadows of a multibillion-dollar technology company — Deel,” the complaint reads. Rippling’s amended lawsuit is now suing Deel under the federal racketeering (RICO) statute, as well as the Defend Trade Secrets Act, and California state law. The lawsuit directly names Alex Bouaziz; his father Philippe Bouaziz — who is chairman and chief financial officer; and Deel’s chief operating officer Daniel Westgarth. It’s important to note that the lead attorney for Rippling is...