A former Apple employee faces a lawsuit from the tech giant after the company claimed the employee sold or leaked trade secrets to a media outlet for over a year, seeking personal gain. According to Apple, Simon Lancaster abused his position to access information outside of his scope, then exchanging the information for payment and positive media coverage of an associated startup business. Court documents state that although Lancaster spent over a decade at Apple, he continued to disseminate sensitive trade secret information to media outlets.
Court documents allege that Lancaster began his relationship with a media correspondent on November 29, 2018. Lancaster then was in regular communication with the correspondent for the next ten months, including email, phone, and text communications. The two began meeting in person by September of the following year, according to Lancaster. At this point, they were exchanging physical documents. Secrets exposed by Lancaster within the media outlet were linked to an “unknown Apple source.”
