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IPFS News Link • Techno Gadgets

Lawsuit Claims Apple Is Poaching Engineers to Build a Car Battery Division

• http://www.wired.com,BY DAVEY ALBA

Electric-car battery maker A123 Systems has sued Apple for poaching its engineers, according to a court filing first spotted by legal news site Law360. Filed earlier this month in Massachusetts federal court, the lawsuit alleges that since around June 2014, Apple has been luring away A123 engineers responsible for some of the battery maker's most important projects. Crossing over to Apple breaks employee agreements with A123, according to the lawsuit.

Additionally, the lawsuit accused one A123 Systems employee of helping Apple poach the company's engineers. The engineers who decided to leave were senior-level employees whose departures meant that the projects they had been working on for the battery maker simply had to be abandoned, according to A123's suit.

Apple is seeking the engineers, the company claims, because it wants to build batteries itself. "Apple is currently developing a large-scale battery division to compete in the very same field as A123," the court filing reads. Both Apple and A123 declined to comment on the suit.