Lawsuit Alleges $12 Billion "Unicorn" Deel Cultivated Spy, Orchestrated Long-Running Trade-Secret Theft & Corporate Espionage Against Competitor

Deel’s Alleged Spy Locked Himself in Bathroom When Confronted by Court-Appointed Solicitors Friday“I’m Willing to Take that Risk [of Violating the Court Order]” Alleged Deel Spy Declared When Served with Legal Papers to Hand Over His Phone  In Lawsuit, Rippling Describes How It Conclusively Proved Deel’s Senior Leadership Orchestrated the Illegal Activity

San Francisco, CA, March 17, 2025 – Deel, a $12-billion unicorn company, orchestrated a multi-month campaign to steal a competitor’s confidential business information with help from a corporate spy, according to a lawsuit filed today in the Northern District of California, San Francisco Division.

The lawsuit alleges Deel cultivated a Rippling employee to conduct thousands of suspicious searches and funnel stolen confidential business intelligence directly back to Deel.

Deel’s agent used Rippling systems to spy on Deel’s own customers, who were discussing a switch to Rippling away from Deel. The spy searched the term “Deel” in the competitor’s systems on average 23 times a day over a four month period, which allowed the spy to comprehensively capture every detail of Rippling’s sales pipeline competing with Deel, including proposed pricing, details of sales meetings and conversations between Rippling and prospective customers evaluating a switch away from Deel, and training materials for Rippling’s sales organization on how to compete against Deel.

After Rippling’s security team detected the spy’s unusual systems activity, Rippling set a honeypot for Deel’s senior leadership to conclusively prove their involvement.

Rippling crafted a letter that referenced an empty Slack channel in Rippling’s corporate Slack instance called “d-defectors,” and implied the Slack channel contained messages that would be of interest to Deel.

The letter was sent to only three people – Phillipe Bouaziz, the chairman of Deel’s board, CFO, General Counsel, and the father of Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz; Spiros Komis, Deel’s Head of US Legal; and the company’s outside counsel at law firm.

Within hours of sending the letter, Deel’s spy inside of Rippling searched – for the first time – for this empty and never-before-used Slack channel, proving that Deel’s top executives or its legal representatives were running the covert espionage operation.

The lawsuit describes in vivid detail how the alleged spy, when confronted last Friday at Rippling’s Dublin office with a court order to hand over his phone, fled to the bathroom and locked the door. When repeatedly warned not to delete materials from his device and that his non-compliance could result in jail time, the spy responded: “I’m willing to take that risk,” and fled the premises.

According to the lawsuit, Deel’s spy spent over four months obsessively and systematically accessing Slack channels where he had no legitimate business interest. He searched Slack more than 6,000 times – allegedly swiping confidential sales pipeline data and internal customer interactions.

Armed with this stolen information, Deel allegedly obtained an unfair and illegal advantage to:

• Intercept and counter Rippling’s sales efforts by learning which customers Rippling was pitching in real time.

• Preemptively retain customers who were considering switching from Deel to Rippling.

• Poach Rippling employees by using stolen contact details, including private phone numbers, to aggressively recruit them – sometimes making offers without even interviewing the candidate.

• Distort media narratives by misusing confidential Rippling information to counter negative press about Deel’s own misconduct.

"The evidence in this case is undeniable. The highest levels of Deel’s leadership are implicated in a brazen corporate espionage scheme and they will be held accountable,” said Alex Spiro, legal counsel for Rippling.

“We’re all for healthy competition, but we won’t tolerate when a competitor breaks the law,” said Vanessa Wu, General Counsel of Rippling. “The scale of this corporate espionage is breathtaking – permeating their sales, marketing, recruiting and even communications operations.”

Rippling is seeking compensatory and punitive damages for the harm Deel has inflicted and will pursue all necessary legal action to ensure accountability.

To read the lawsuit, click here: https://rippling2.imgix.net/Complaint.pdf 

Media Contact

Bobby Whithorne bobby@rippling.com