Electric vehicle startup Karma Automotive has filed a lawsuit against DeLorean Motors Reimagined, which owns the rights to the original DeLorean Motor Company (DMC) brand, and four of its employees – the defendants are accused of stealing intellectual property.
Image source: delorean.com
The lawsuit alleges that four DeLorean employees, including CEO Joost de Vries, COO Alan Yuan, vice president Neilo Harris and chief marketing officer Troy Beetz , stole trade secret information from Karma, which was subsequently used in the DeLorean Motors Reimagined project. The project aims to revive the iconic sports model of the eighties, but in an electric version.
In 2020, negotiations took place between Karma and DMC on the idea of releasing an electric DeLorean car. According to the plaintiff, the defendants left the Karma company one by one, taking with them developments, templates and other materials, after which they opened their own enterprise. The head of DeLorean sees what happened in a different way. He argues that the negotiations between Karma and DMC were unsuccessful due to the failure of the former, either financially or in terms of production. And DeLorean Motors Reimagined is a completely new company, not affiliated with the Karma initiative.
In April, the San Antonio City Council (Texas, USA) approved a $562,500 stimulus package for DMC, allowing the company to file for a $1.25 million tax refund. In response, the automaker pledged to create 450 jobs with an average an annual salary of $145,600.
Karma Automotive appeared after the Chinese Wanxiang bought out part of the assets of the bankrupt startup Fisker Karma. The revamped company changed its name to Karma Automotive and released several models, including I revere. And last year, she sued Lordstown Motors for stealing trade secrets and poaching infotainment developers.
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