The Indo Daily: Secret messages, codewords and a phone smashed with an axe – The Irishman caught in 'biggest corporate espionage case of the century'

Irish Independent

6 hours ago

Earlier this year a spy trail of secret messages, codewords and a phone smashed with an axe unfolded in front of the High Court in an extraordinary tale of alleged corporate espionage.
The story of Dublin man Keith O'Brien made international headlines when his employer, a major US HR services firm, set a 'trap' to identify how confidential information was being leaked – and the saga is not over yet. His 13-page confession was read to the High Court, where he told how he spied on his multinational employer for a rival for a fee of over €5,000 a month. That is, until he was caught.
In an affidavit filed with the High Court, Keith O'Brien, who was global payroll compliance manager of Rippling, said he was induced into spying and passing sensitive company information to the CEO of rival US firm Deel Inc.
The admission was disclosed during an application to join Deel, its French chief executive Alex Bouaziz and two solicitors working for Deel – Italian national Andrea David Mieli and UK-based Asif Malik – as co-defendants in corporate espionage proceedings taken by Rippling against Mr O'Brien last month.
The Commercial Court heard Mr O'Brien passed on screenshots from Rippling's Slack messaging system to Mr Bouaziz, who was described as a billionaire, over the course of several months and was paid for this via Revolut and in cryptocurrency.
Today, on the Indo Daily, Fionnán Sheahan is joined by Irish Independent legal affairs editor Shane Phelan and Sunday Independent senior correspondent Maeve Sheehan, to discuss how a payroll compliance manager was allegedly recruited as a corporate spy – and where the intrigue will go next.