Newly unsealed documents tie Deel to payments for alleged Rippling spy, while Deel points to witness incentives
The court filings detail payments Rippling says were routed through a Deel executive’s spouse to a corporate spy, claims Deel counters by accusing Rippling of bankrolling and controlling its own paid witness.
Newly unsealed documents in the high-stakes legal battle between HR-tech rivals Deel and Rippling offer the most detailed account yet of what Rippling describes as a covert operation funded directly from Deel’s corporate accounts to pay a former Rippling employee accused of stealing trade secrets.
The court filing, made public after a successful motion by Rippling to lift redactions, shows how funds were routed from a Revolut account belonging to Lets Deel Ltd to the personal bank account of Alba Basha, the wife of Deel’s chief operating officer, Dan Westgarth. According to the documents, Basha transferred the entire amount to the alleged corporate spy just 56 seconds later, leaving her account balance effectively unchanged at $8.16.
The newly revealed material forms part of Rippling’s broader lawsuit accusing Deel of racketeering, trade-secret theft, and unfair competition.
The unsealed Revolut records show Deel used corporate funds to move $6,000 through Basha’s account, which was then passed to the alleged thief, Keith O’Brien. Subsequent payments, Rippling says, were made in cryptocurrency “to leave no trace.”
The filing raises pointed questions about who inside Deel authorized the payments, why they ran through an executive’s spouse, and how the transfers were categorized in Deel’s financial reporting. Rippling’s lawyers ask whether the funds were recorded as R&D expenses tied to stolen product-roadmap data, or as sales and marketing costs related to the exfiltration of customer and pricing information.
They further question what Deel disclosed to its external financial auditors and to its newly appointed senior executives, including CFO and President Joe Kauffman, General Counsel DeAnn Work, and Chief Compliance Officer Anthony Luis Rodriguez, all of whom joined after the litigation began.
The magistrate judge granted Rippling’s motion to make the Revolut information public, explaining that all individuals involved had “significant connections to this case,” including Lets Deel Ltd, Basha, and O’Brien.
The judge added that privacy concerns did not outweigh the public interest in understanding “the transactions at the heart of this case.”
The document, Rippling notes, is among the first to surface eight months after it first accused Deel of targeting its CRM data and internal product plans. According to Rippling, Deel has attempted to delay or block discovery, including requests to Revolut, as the litigation has progressed.
Deel said in response: “This is Rippling rehashing its same story, nothing new. In fact, we did not contest the unsealing of this information. Contrast this with Rippling’s resistance to revealing its full financial and contractual arrangements with its paid witness, Mr. Keith O’Brien, despite our repeated requests. We believe that information will show he has even more financial incentive to align himself with Rippling, outside of the €110,700 lump sum, blank check for his expenses, and legal indemnification that Rippling has already given to him in his cooperation agreement. On December 2 we will ask the Irish court to compel Rippling to hand over these documents.”
According to Deel, the agreement shows Rippling committed to covering all of O’Brien’s legal, travel, and related costs from March 25, 2025 onward, despite O’Brien having stated the day before that he had no legal representation. Rippling also granted him full legal indemnification in U.S. proceedings, released him from his non-compete, and returned 820 unvested RSUs.
The filings also show O’Brien is barred from making any statement that could “disparage” Rippling, with a €150,000 penalty and potential renewed litigation if he does. Deel says the terms suggest O’Brien is financially dependent on Rippling and heavily incentivized to support its claims. Deel’s counsel has also requested his full separation agreement, indicating there may be additional undisclosed financial benefits.
In the months since the lawsuit was filed in March, Deel has hired an almost entirely new top legal, finance, compliance, and risk team. Earlier this month, the company appointed Kauffman, a former Intuit executive with two IPOs behind him, as CFO and President, replacing founding CFO Philippe Bouaziz, father of CEO Alex Bouaziz.
Deel has also added a new General Counsel, a board-reporting Chief Compliance Officer, and a Chief Risk Officer.
The company, founded in 2019, has continued to grow rapidly, recently recording its first $100 million revenue month and processing $22 billion in annual payroll for 37,000 clients across 150 countries. But the litigation has shadowed those milestones, including its preparations for a possible IPO, a move Kauffman has openly described as the long-term target.
The case, which erupted into public view earlier this year, centers on allegations that Deel executives, including Bouaziz and his father Philippe, oversaw efforts to obtain confidential data from rivals through covert channels.
O’Brien admitted in April to passing internal documents to Deel for monthly payments before being caught in a sting operation. Deel has denied all wrongdoing and filed a countersuit accusing Rippling of running its own infiltration scheme.
