The rivalry between startups has now spilled over into legal proceedings. US HR tech startup Rippling filed a lawsuit against rival Deel in Ireland this year. The main allegation is that Deel sent a spy inside Rippling.
Following the lawsuit, Rippling is now trying to serve official court documents on Deel’s co-founder and CEO Alex Bouaziz. But it’s not going to be easy – the bailiffs hired in France can’t find Bouaziz anywhere.
What’s going on?
- According to documents submitted by Rippling to the court, Deel hired one of its employees to go inside Rippling and collect information.
- The statement of the “spy” who joined the lawsuit makes the whole story look like a detective movie.
- Deel denies all the charges.
Now Rippling needs to deliver the official documents to Bouaziz to continue the process. But the main problem is that Bouaziz is nowhere to be found.
Where is Bouaziz?
- He is a French citizen and has an address in Paris, but the executors have not been able to find him there.
- According to the French publication Challenges, Bouaziz is “extremely nomadic” but “very attached to France.”
- He lists his LinkedIn profile as Tel Aviv and his Twitter account as X.
- Rippling plans to send him an email warning as a possible solution.
Big companies, big lawsuits
Deel and Rippling are major players in the human resources management and global recruitment services industry. Lawsuits like these:
- reveal the fierce competition between startups;
- show how careful tech companies need to be about data security;
- It reminds us that the transparency and legal accountability of CEOs and leaders is still an important topic.
