Isn't this like the third lawsuit Rippling has put up against Deel. There was one for some church thing end of last year, and they made a big stink in 2023 when regulations on prop trading shops changed.
If the allegations are true, it's insane. But also feels a bit boy cried wolf.
If the honeypot description is accurate, the wolf is real. The below is from section 5 of their complaint [1]:
> Rippling’s General
Counsel sent a legal letter to Deel’s senior leadership identifying a recently established Slack
channel called “d-defectors,”
> In reality, the “d-defectors” channel
was not used by Rippling employees and contained no discussions at all. It had never been searched
for or accessed by the spy, would not have come up in any of the spy’s previous searches, and the
spy had no legitimate reason to access the channel. Crucially, this legal letter was only sent to three
recipients, all associated with Deel: Deel’s Chairman, Chief Financial Officer, and General Counsel
(Philippe Bouaziz), Deel’s Head of U.S. Legal (Spiros Komis), and Deel’s outside counsel. Neither
the letter nor the #d-defectors channel was known to anyone outside of Rippling’s investigative team
and the Deel recipients. Yet, just hours after Rippling sent the letter to Deel’s executives and
counsel, Deel’s spy searched for and accessed the #d-defectors channel
I know, insane if true. But it seems like Parker is pretty litigious these days, and I guess feels like he's losing? There was a very cringe snake game a couple of months ago where the Deel logo was a snake, which leads me to believe he's not fighting from the point of strength.
May fav part: "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."
We have exactly one piece of data on this case right now, which is the filed legal complaint. As a parody of corporate espionage, it's excellent, but as a piece of evidence… I would treat it with about the same seriousness as a parody of corporate espionage. Rippling has some incentive not to lie outright, but none whatsoever not to exaggerate the living heck out of everything. And so that leaves us with one unreliable document, and general background information on the parties, or "vibes" as you dismiss it. And the general background is that Rippling is litigious and clearly has a preexisting axe to grind with Deel.
> Rippling has some incentive not to lie outright, but none whatsoever not to exaggerate the living heck out of everything.
What could have been exaggerated in the honeypot story? That seems pretty damning and they would be able to provide evidence to back it up (e.g. Slack access logs and the email).
If the allegations are true, it's insane. But also feels a bit boy cried wolf.