Nvidia sued for employee stealing partner's source code

According to Bloomberg, Mohammad Moniruzzaman, who formerly worked for Valeo, caused serious consequences during a meeting between Nvidia and his former company.

During a conference call with the Valeo team, Moniruzzaman shared his screen. The controversy erupted when Valeo claimed that Moniruzzaman accidentally displayed a folder called “ValeoDocs” containing documents taken from the company. Valeo claims that Moniruzzaman took gigabytes of data in 2021 while working for them in Germany, before moving to Nvidia that same year. The company accuses him of stealing key source code for their steering and parking software, an area Nvidia is also actively developing.

Valeo said it immediately realized Moniruzzaman had stolen the documents via screen sharing and took a screenshot before minimizing the application window. The employee was convicted by German authorities in September 2023 for illegally retaining data. He admitted to the crime and confirmed that he used software stolen from Valeo while working at Nvidia.

That led Valeo to sue Nvidia, claiming the company benefited financially from its stolen trade secrets. The complaint alleges Nvidia saved hundreds of millions of dollars in development costs and made profits it didn’t deserve.

Nvidia lawsuit stems from employee stealing source code from former company

As part of the complaint, Valeo also included a letter it received from Nvidia in June 2022. In the letter, lawyers representing Nvidia said Mr. Monizruzzaman’s actions were completely unknown to the company until May 2022, when he disclosed he was under investigation. According to the letter, Mr. Monizruzzaman told Nvidia that the code was stored only locally on his laptop, so it was inaccessible to people within the company.

“Nvidia has no interest in Valeo’s source code or its alleged trade secrets and has taken prompt, concrete steps to protect its customers’ asserted rights,” the letter said, adding that the company has cooperated fully.

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