Meta Sues Former VP For Allegedly Stealing Confidential Documents Before Joining A 'Stealth' Cloud Computing Startup

Mark Zuckerberg-led Meta Platforms Inc. META has filed a lawsuit against its former Vice President, Dipinder Singh Khurana, also known as T.S. Khurana, for allegedly stealing confidential documents before joining a "stealth" AI cloud computing startup.

What Happened: Khurana was a senior executive at Meta, where he worked for 12 years. He was the VP of infrastructure at the company.

Meta has accused Khurana of violating his contract by taking "trove of proprietary, highly sensitive, confidential, and non-public documents about Meta's business and employees," as he prepared to leave the company, reported Bloomberg.

The complaint was filed on Feb. 29 in a California state court in ContraCosta County.

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Khurana allegedly uploaded documents related to employee pay and performance, as well as non-public business contracts, to his personal Google Drive and Dropbox accounts just before leaving the tech giant.

Meta claims that at least eight employees listed on the documents Khurana uploaded then left Meta to work at Khurana’s new company last year.

The lawsuit states, “Khurana’s conduct while leaving Meta, and since then, reflects an utter disregard for his contractual and legal obligations.” A Meta spokesperson stated that the company takes such misconduct seriously and will continue to protect confidential business and employee information.

Why It Matters: This lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal actions taken by major tech companies to protect their intellectual property.

Earlier this month, a Google engineer, Linwei Ding, was indicted for allegedly stealing AI trade secrets. Ding is accused of stealing over 500 confidential files containing AI trade secrets from Google.

Photo by Ink Drop on Shutterstock

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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.