Tesla’s lawsuit against Rivian, which was first filed in July 2020, has progressed in a California court.
Tesla claims that the electric car start-up encouraged “the misappropriation of Tesla’s trade secrets, confidential, and proprietary information by Tesla employees that Rivian hires.” It also alleges a pattern of employees leaving Tesla for Rivian and taking trade secrets with them. In the lawsuit, Tesla says that Rivian poached no less than 178 of its employees.
Read More: Tesla Suing Rivian For Alleged Employee Poaching And Trade Secret Theft
Rivian has denied the allegations and says that Tesla is coming after it in an attempt to shut down competition in the EV market. It moved to have the lawsuit dismissed in the California Superior Court but its motion was denied earlier this week by judge William Monahan. The judge also declined its request to dismiss claims leveled against seven former Tesla employees who now work for Rivian. The judge did, however, dismiss Tesla’s “international interference in contract claim,” The Truth About Cars notes.
In its lawsuit, Tesla states: “Misappropriating Tesla’s competitively useful confidential information when leaving Tesla for a new employer is obviously wrong and risky. One would engage in that behavior only for an important benefit – to use it to serve the competitive interests of a new employer.”
Rivian has always denied the claims, stating that they “have not, and will not, introduce former employers’ intellectual property into Rivian systems.”
“Rivian is made up of high-performing, mission-driven teams, and our business model and technology are based on many years of engineering, design and strategy development. This requires the contribution and know-how of thousands of employees from across the technology and automotive spaces,” the automaker added.
