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

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.

Clever move on Rippling’s part.

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.

The spy, on the other hand, …

Apparently this is not the first batch of drama between these two companies, either.

Mar 17, 2025 · No comments yet