Air taxi startup countersues over rival’s 'tortious media campaign'
California air taxi startup Archer Aviation has hit back against a trade secrets suit levied at it by Wisk Aero, launching a countersuit over Wisk’s “false and misleading statements” about the company.
Wisk Aero, a fledgling electric take-off and landing (eVTOL) manufacturer, claimed that Archer stole its aircraft concept and also accused an ex-employee of stealing “thousands of confidential files” before leaving the company to join Archer.
Last week, Wisk filed a preliminary injunction to prohibit Archer from using trade secrets allegedly obtained through the confidential files.
In a statement to WIPR, Archer said: “This a baseless motion in a baseless lawsuit. Archer independently designed its aircraft, before any employees from Wisk joined Archer, and Archer looks forward to demonstrating that in court.
“Archer is moving forward with its business plans, including the development, certification and production of its proprietary aircraft.”
In response to the suit, Archer filed a complaint yesterday June 1, which calls Wisk’s lawsuit “entirely without merit” and claims that it was filed in order to “impede the runaway success, and investment in” Archer.
“Wisk does not actually identify even a single Wisk trade secret ever used by, or even known to, Archer,” the company said in the filing.
The company intends to hold Wisk accountable for anticompetitive conduct, asserting that the company engaged in a media campaign to harm Archer, citing a blog post Wisk had made claiming that the FBI and US Department of Justice are conducting a criminal investigation into Archer relating to IP theft.
“That is a false statement that Wisk knew or should have known was untrue when Wisk posted it and that remains untrue today,” Archer said.
Archer has asked the court to dismiss Wisk’s complaint with prejudice, award “treble” damages to Archer for Wisk’s conduct and provide injunctive relief among several other prayers for relief.
Consulting concept
Addressing Wisk’s complaint that Archer had copied Wisk’s eVTOL design, Archer claims that it developed its own aircraft independently and worked with a leading eVTOL design consultant to do so.
It hired FlightHouse Engineering to help design the initial aircraft concept, having designed several concepts by December 2019 which featured 12 tilt-rotors on a fixed wind. This, Archer claims, was “before a single former Wisk employee joined Archer.”
This was also before Jing Xue, former Wisk engineer, had allegedly downloaded files from Wisk prior to joining Archer.
‘Stopping Archer’s momentum’
Archer claims Wisk filed the lawsuit to “unjustly hamper” Archer’s success. Alongside the lawsuit, Archer said that Wisk had undergone a “tortious media campaign” against the company.
“Wisk’s business is reportedly in trouble, and it now seeks to misuse the legal systems to unjustly hamper Archer’s success,” Archer alleges in a statement.
Archer has secured a $1 billion order from United Airlines, with an option for an additional $500 million—a substantial deal for the nascent air taxi market.
“Wisk improperly seeks to interfere with Archer’s billion-dollar transactions with this baseless lawsuit and simultaneous media campaign, both launched just after the transactions were announced.”
“That is because while Archer has soared, Wisk is at risk of crashing.”
WIPR has contacted Wisk Aero for comment.
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