Payments giant Paypal has accused two former execs who defected to Google of stealing trade secrets, and helping build its rival mobile payments system.
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The sensational claim made today was part of a lawsuit the payments company, which is owned by online auction giant eBay slapped on the search engine Google in a Californian state court yesterday.
The ex-employees in question include Osama Bedier, who is now vice president of it’s rival mobile payments division brought highly confidential information to Google, say the mobile payments giant.
Bedier, who was drafted in by another former PayPal worker Stephanie Tilenius, now VP of Commerce at Google, double crossed them by having a job with Google lined up earlier this year whilst leading negotiations to make PayPal a payment option on Android OS, PayPal also allege.
“At the very point when the companies were negotiating and finalizing the Android-PayPal deal, Bedier was interviewing for a job at Google — without informing PayPal of this conflicting position.”
This was a breach of his fiduciary duty, it claims.
Tilenius violated contractual obligation by employing Bedier, say PayPal, although it is not clear if Bedier was headhunter or applied for the position of his own accord.
“Bedier and Google have misappropriated PayPal trade secrets by disclosing them within Google and to major retailers,” the claim also states.
Just yesterday the Android OS maker announced Google Wallet and Offers to rival eBay’s star attraction PayPal, both of which centre around mobile payments.
PayPal is one of the fastest growing divisions within eBay and has been at the forefront of online as well as mobile payments to date, and just last month announced Q1 sales of $2.5 billion and its net total payment volume growing 28% to $27.4 billion, one of its strongest to date.
“Mobile is increasing the number of internet-enabled transactions, and in the process it is rapidly blurring the line between online and offline,” eBay CEO John Donahoe said earlier this year.
Google’s newly announced wallet mobile payment technology uses near field communication (NFC) which is to be embedded in new Android smartphones and mobile devices.
The technology transforms the phone into an electronic wallet which when swiped in front of a scanner makes a payment with a tap and go system.
