Meta Sues Ex-VP For Stealing Trade Secrets And Sharing Them With His New Employer

Meta is suing its former vice president of infrastructure for allegedly stealing data from the company. The stolen data includes human resource reports, supplier information of the company, and details about the company’s data centers.

However, last year in June, he left his job out of nowhere and accepted a position as a VP of supply chain operations in a new startup. The company hasn’t been named in the lawsuit.

However, soon after he left, Meta’s internal monitoring team found that something was amiss. They realized that during his notice period, Khurana uploaded large amounts of data to his personal Google Drive and Dropbox accounts. He also uploaded some of the files directly to a folder named after his new company.

Hence on February 29, Meta filed a lawsuit against Khurana in a California state court for his “brazenly disloyal” conduct.

Five charges have been filed against him

Meta is rather enraged that despite receiving a hefty compensation and the prestigious title of a VP, Khurana betrayed his former employer.

Khurana was also contacted for a comment but he’s yet to respond.

Read More: Former Google employee charged with stealing trade secrets – arrested in California

What Exactly Did Dipinder Khurana Steal?

Khurana’s position within the company gave him access to a lot of confidential data that only a few selected people in the company could see. The stolen data includes human resource documents consisting of payroll details, recruitment files, compensation, and performance data.

There was also a list of employees labeled as “Top Talent”. After investigation, Meta found that at least 8 of the employees mentioned on the list had left their jobs for a position at Khurana’s new company.

More people have been contacted for a position in the new company but it’s unclear if they accepted it or not.

According to reports, he also manipulated his subordinates into sharing confidential information. This includes Meta’s agreement and pricing details with a supplier of computer hardware and a pricing agreement with a supplier of a particular chip.

These pieces of information are very crucial since they give the company a competitive advantage in the market. So having these trade secrets revealed will clearly hurt its business.

Hence, the company wants Khurana to not only pay for damages but also give up any benefit (including financial compensation) that he may have received by sharing those stolen secrets. However, the allegations are yet to be confirmed in court.