Espionage evokes images of boat chases through Venice's canals or microfilm smuggled out of a foreign country hidden within a strudel. You know, spy stuff. Perhaps surprisingly, the world of human resources (HR) could make a movie based spy games occurring within its industry. To give it bit of a horror film flavor, the calls were coming from inside the house.
HR giant Rippling filed a lawsuit in the San Francisco on March 17, 2025, against former customer and current competitor Deel. The suit accuses Deel of cultivating a spy at Rippling who funneled company secrets and confidential information for four months before being tripped up by a trap. The seven-count filing seeks unspecified damages.
A Man on the Inside
People Center Inc., doing business as Rippling, is a successful company that provides human resources, finances, and information technology (IT) services for tens of thousands of customers around the world.
Founded in 2019 as a global contractor management platform, Deel was a customer of Rippling's. Considered a "unicorn company" because of the rarity of a privately held startup being worth more than $1 billion, Deel found itself cut off from Rippling's services in 2023. The two companies had begun to compete in similar markets and Rippling chose not to renew a service contract with Deel in February.
According to the lawsuit, in June of that year an affiliate of Rippling based in Dublin, Ireland, hired a new Global Payroll Compliance Manager. While the new employee signed loyalty and confidentiality clauses in his contract, he chose not to honor them.
In November, the spy began conducting numerous searches through Rippling's Slack messaging system, gaining access to vital Rippling corporate data and practices. This included trade secrets, marketing plans, customer information, and even a slide deck used in sales presentations.
The suit alleges the spy also leaked personal and contact information about people in his department, allowing Deel to attempt to poach them from Rippling. As the methods of contact used weren't accessible publicly, Rippling opened up an internal investigation.
Not the Kind of Honeypot Winnie the Pooh Prefers
In February 2025, a reporter working on a story about Deel and dealings with Russian sanctions contacted Rippling. The reporter had found Slack messages of Rippling's in Deel's data. After narrowing down the common search words, Rippling discovered one employee who had been making suspicious searches in high volume throughout their Slack system — the new Global Payroll Compliance Manager in Dublin.
The searches, along with an email sent to the potential spy by Deel in December 2024, prompted Rippling to prove a link between the two. To do so, they set a trap called a honeypot. Creating a fake Slack channel called "#d-defectors" that was supposedly for ex-Deel employees who now worked at Rippling, it contained redacted "information" alleged to be embarrassing to Deel.
Rippling's General Counsel sent copies of a letter to Deel's Chief Financial Officer, Head of U.S. Legal, and an employment attorney at Deel's outside law firm alerting them to the channel's existence. Within hours of the letter being sent, the mole began running Slack searches for the "#d-defectors" channel and the name of an individual who had posted there.
This, the lawsuit argues, established the connection between the spy and important people at Deel. The spy had never searched for the "#d-defectors" channel previous to the alerting of Deel by Rippling.
On March 14, 2025, authorities in Dublin moved to seize the alleged spy's phone, who fled to the bathroom and locked himself in. When informed that he could be charged with violating a court order if he deleted information from his phone, he responded, "I'm willing to take that risk." He then fled the premises.
Deel or No Deel?
In their filing, Rippling accuses Deal of RICO violations, Misappropriation of Trade Secrets, Unfair Trade Violations, and other charges. They request a jury trial. No amounts are specified for the damages they're seeking. It doesn't take a CIA agent to figure out that given the trade secrets and corporate playbook stolen, the relief could be astronomical.
Related Resources
- Important Elements of Employment Contracts (FindLaw's Employment Law and Human Resources)
- Espionage (FindLaw's Criminal Charges)
- White-Collar Crime (FindLaw's Learn About the Law)
