The Skype-eBay plot thickens. Joost and Joltid, both companies owned by Skype’s founders, have filed a lawsuit against former Joost chairman and CEO, Mike Volpi. The suit also names Index Ventures, the VC firm where Volpi is a partner. We’ve embedded the legal document that appears to have been filed this morning, below.
According to a press release issued this morning:
The lawsuit alleges breach of fiduciary duty against Volpi, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty against Index, interference with prospective business advantage, misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract against Index, breach of confidence, and civil conspiracy. The suit seeks an injunction requiring the defendants to return to the plaintiffs all documents and files containing confidential information that the lawsuit alleges was misappropriated from Joost, and enjoining the defendants from making any use of the alleged misappropriated trade secrets, among other things.
Earlier this week, Joltid, the Swedish firm owned by founders of Skype sued eBay and recent Skype buyers Silver Lake Partners and its partners in the buyout, Index Ventures, Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board; accusing them of copyright violations. The Twist: Skype founders Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom also founded Joost and Volpi, Joost’s former chairman and CEO who left the imploding company to become a partner at Index Ventures, has been rumored to be a contender for Skype’s CEO position.
While Friis and Zennstrom named Volpi as a defendant in the earlier suit against eBay, it appears that the new suite against Volpi alleges leaking of trade secrets from Joost, breach of contract and “civil conspiracy.”
eBay sold Skype in a deal valuing the peer-to-peer telephony service at $2.75 billion a few weeks ago, with the new investors owning approximately 65% of Skype, with eBay continuing to own 35%. Several months ago, Skype’s founders made their intentions public by announcing they wanted to buy Skype back from eBay. Shortly after this announcement, eBay announced that Skype was to be spun off as a separate company and then IPO.
Joost –
