HR Tech Giant Deel says he has formally accepted the provision of legal documents in the ongoing court battle against rival ripples in Ireland. This ends a few weeks of suspense after the Ripling enforcement officers are unable to serve the Deal executives. Deal’s CEO and top lawyer will only show up in Dubai.
Deel CEO Alex Bouaziz, along with Deel Lawyers Asif Malik and Andrea David Mieli, agreed to accept the service today through Deel’s Irish law firm, and Deel confirmed with TechCrunch. Deel Inc., a US company from Deel, was already served on April 16th. This is an affidavit filed by Rippling at an Irish court show this morning.
“Today, in a courtroom in Dublin, Hayes’ lawyers agreed to accept services on behalf of all four political parties,” a Deal spokesperson told TechCrunch.
In an affidavit filed this morning, Ripples reiterated his efforts to do so in France and Italy, saying it was unable to serve Bouaziz, Malik and Meeri. For example, Rippling hired a French enforcement officer to provide Bouaziz at a listed address in Paris on April 10, but only stumbled upon a relative who said Bouaziz was in Dubai.
On April 15, TechCrunch reported that Bouaziz was in Dubai, and Deel did not respond to requests for comment at the time. However, 10 days later, Deel told TechCrunch that Bouaziz “lives in Israel” and that he would only be in Dubai for a few days to celebrate Passover.
TechCrunch asked Deel if he could clarify where Bouaziz is currently, but Deel declined, citing his privacy reasons.
Deel denounced the idea that Rippling was avoiding receiving service despite failing attempts to do so through various process servers. “It’s misrepresentation that everyone was avoiding service and that the story was clearly used as a public smear tactic,” a Deal spokesman said.
Deel told TechCrunch that Malik’s move to Dubai was planned for over a year, well before Rippling’s lawsuit. Regarding Andrea David Miri, who said in an affidavit that Ripling was unable to serve in Italy, Deal said he lives and works at his home in Italy and is available.
The lawsuit focuses on Ripling’s allegations in which Deal will spy on one of the Irish employees, Keith O’Brien, on internal affairs on behalf of Deal. And O’Brien himself testified that he had been spying on a long affidavit.
After weeks of silence, Deal has fought back very publicly, filing a counter-study in the US last week, bringing various accusations against rippling, including developing a unique insider within the Deal.
In response, Rippling CEO Parker Conrad posted to X. “Deel has not challenged our central allegations. @Bouazizalex personally recruited spies to steal Rippling’s trade secrets and personally directed theft.”
Ripples did not respond to requests for comment.