Mumbai: Freshworks has asked a US court to dismiss a case filed against it by rival Zoho, saying that the petition lacked “specificity and particularity” to allege that it stole confidential customer data. Zoho has requested the court time to file a reply to the motion.
In March this year, Zoho filed a case against Freshworks at the California Northern District Court under the Defense of Trade Secrets Act, accusing it of accessing and using confidential customer data. Zoho claimed that its customers were receiving emails from Freshworks in their confidential IDs. The complaint had specifically mentioned certain actions of one Freshworks employee.
In its response filed on July 16, Freshworks accused Zoho of expanding one alleged incident into a broader case of trade secret misappropriation.
It added that there were “no adequately alleged trade secrets” and that the complaint should be dismissed. “…all that remains of Zoho’s FAC (first amended complaint) is that a single Freshworks employee improperly obtained customer email addresses from a Zoho database and sent emails to those addresses… Zoho should not be permitted to leverage that narrow allegation into a discovery fishing expedition and all-out assault on Freshworks’ business,” Freshworks said in its response, a copy of which ET has seen.
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