If you haven’t heard of it, there will be a massive court battle between the two HRs and pay service rivals, Ripling and Deal (both suing each other).
So, what does this have to do with our industry? Now, there’s another ongoing lawsuit arose between the two crypto companies. That’s a bit complicated so please hold on with me.
Last December – Toku filed accusations before Rippling filed a lawsuit the Rival company Liquifi and its new general counsel Benjamin Snipes have stole thousands of files containing sensitive business information after Snipes left Toku in so unpleasant conditions. The lawsuit claims that Snipes wanted a promotion at Toku but didn’t get it, so he stopped working for the company outside of the code just to pop up to Rikifi in a few months.
(Snipes’ affidavit confirmed that he temporarily left the code after Toku, calling it a “toxic work environment.”
A coincidence? Toku doesn’t seem to think so. And from what I’ve heard, these companies operate in very small subsections of crypto. There are four big players: Toku, Liquifi, Magna and Pulley. Secondly, there are a few small businesses that may overlap.
Toku is a platform built for tax and payroll compliance via a crypto lens, and Liquifi is trying to automate the best of tokens (in words, it builds a “cryptocarta”).
On the one hand, Toku claims that through his investigation he discovered that he had shot the company’s documents before a “fierce departure.” Since then, Toku claims that the two have been engaged in the business as “in a full campaign about Toku in the market.”
Those familiar with the sector said Benjamin Snipe applied for a demonstration at Magna last September. According to his LinkedIn, Liquifi onboarded the sniper that was officially onboarded in October 2024.
Snipe confirmed it to me. He added that the demonstration had happened before he spoke to Rikifi, explaining that he had just been consulting at the time.
According to court documents, Snipe was “ends” by Rikifi after the lawsuit. Toku said it would “harm” his reputation, but that made it difficult for him to find a job.
Liquifi, meanwhile, says Toku’s “all claims are grilled, and there are no steaks.”
Instead, he says it was once a target of Toku’s acquisitions, but the sour relationship deteriorated after those talks were over.
Well, it’s here. The case was filed in December, but is still being discovered (when both parties exchange relevant information prior to a potential trial to prepare for the debate).
However, Toku was handed a loss on Friday when the judge refused an allegation to grant a preliminary injunction. However, the case is still in progress.
“The court’s verdict speaks loudly. With this provisional injunction, we completely rejected all the relief that Toku is seeking against Liquifi, verifying and confirming what we know at all times. Liquifi has always been aiming to be fair competition and innovation over litigation,” Liquifi told me.
“For months, we remained silent in honor of legal proceedings. The court is now seen through Toku’s storytelling, and we are pleased to remain willing and focused on our products, our customers and our partners.”
Meanwhile, Toku told me: “The allegations presented in this application provide evidence of a shocking documentary of Rikifi and Deal’s actions on this issue. As this information is an early stage in the litigation, it is even more troubling that this information hurts the surface and keeps learning what happened.
“The true nature of their unethical and horrifying behavior has not yet been fully revealed. We are taking the protection of trade secrets and confidentiality very seriously and are committed to pursuing appropriate measures to achieve justice as the process moves forward,” a Toku spokesman told me.
Before the court’s decision on Friday, Toku brought another player into the mix, submitting a 74-page summary in an attempt to persuade the judge to rule in favour of the motion. This is where the deal comes out. Liquifi and Deel signed a partnership last year, court documents alleged.
“Rikifi is one of the vendor options for deal customers that require token management and is a service we do not offer. Working with skilled vendors to provide complementary services to our product suite is not just standard industry practice, but good business sense.
Deel and Toku are not competitors, not at the crypto level, but employers of record service providers (if the service provider is based in a different country, if they act as legal employers for the company’s employees, if the company does not have legal institutions).
According to the application, Deal tried to “smash” Toku. Suspicious spy Keith O’Brien was also mentioned in his submissions after being told he had applied for a job at the company four times.
“O’Brien’s quest for Toku’s position almost stopped when he began ‘spion’ on behalf of Deal,” Filing said.
I asked Deal about O’Brien and the mentions in the ongoing incident. The spokesman told me: “We cannot comment on the case of another company, but we understand that the court rejected Toku’s request last Friday.”
“Rikifi has many other partners. This is clearly an attempt to attach a case from several months ago to a completely unrelated news cycle. It is also worth noting that the law firm in this case, Quinn Emmanuel, is representing the company of aggressive litigation against Deal,” they added.
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