HR Tech Startup Deel filed an amended complaint on Tuesday in its ongoing legal battle with the ripples of the Great Environment, which provides astounding new details about the spy allegations of its large corporations.
Ripling sued Deal in March after Ripling's employees testified in an Irish court that they were spying on their employers for their rivals in an affidavit that reads like a Hollywood movie. Rippling's lawsuit alleges misappropriation, such as trade secrets, unlawful interference and unfair competition, primarily based on espionage allegations.
Deal then attempted to dismiss the lawsuit on technical grounds and filed its own claims as Ripples spying on. This amended complaint provides details on the meaning of Deel.
Specifically, one of Rippling's employees claims to be in a competitive intelligence role.
The lawsuit is also full of insults thrown at Ripling's CEO Parker Conrad, mentioning his troubles at his former company, Zenefits. Sometimes, complaints venture into the realm of psychoanalysis. “Understanding Conrad is understanding that it's rippling,” the lawsuit argues.
We then speculate that Ripling targeted Deal as Conrad is upset with Generalefit VC backer Andreesen Horowitz.
The complaint alleges that “Ripling has instilled false and misleading claims about deals with news outlets and regulators nationwide.”
This appears to come from 2023 when U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff posted a public letter to the U.S. Department of Labor asking them to look into how Deal classifies workers. This comes after Business Insider published an investigation into the issue. Deel denied the fraud of the time, saying that the argument with Schiff puts the issue in bed.
The revised complaint also provides at least one financial information. Deel said it has been profitable over the years, with annual revenues exceeding $1 billion.
A Rippling spokesman says the company is considering specific allegations about how employees collected product intelligence, as stated in the complaint. The spokesman said, “The ripples are unshakable to fair competition and commitment to the highest ethical standards. We expect complete compliance as clearly explained in written policies.”
The spokesman also claims that the revised complaint “backtracked” “backtracked” from some of the original claims.
The lawsuit is an interesting read (here's the link), but as for the level of a typical Bravo network reality TV show, it appears that Deel is trying to create a case for The-Tat about corporate spying. However, the two sets of claims are not the same.
Rippling accuss Deel of paying employees to collect information from Rippling's internal network. The employee who confessed to being a spy testified that he provided Deel information, including sales leads, product roadmap, customer accounts, names of superstar employees and other requests.
Deel accussed the products and features from the products themselves, and the information they provide to their customers of rippling for unfair learning about the products and features. Competitors buy each other's products from the beginning of time, as a way to sell tabs, one, and one to each other. So it will be interesting to see how the court handles Deal's case – if they control that such tactics could go too far.
In the meantime, Rippling's suspicions of corporate spy catching (including traps, shattered phones and honeypots) have already slipped into the cultural lexicons of the tech industry.
When Y Combinator Grad Cotool launched its agent security platform last month, among other things, setting up a honeypot, the ad was perfect for the way Rippling's corporate spy said he was caught.