Employment Hero claims it held deal talks with Seek before lawsuit
Newly released court documents for the first time detail Employment Hero's version of the events leading up to its lawsuit against ASX-listed giant Seek, one of its own investors.
Employment Hero and Seek spent nearly three years negotiating over a recruitment joint venture, according to claims in newly released court documents detailing the relationship breakdown between the startup unicorn and ASX-listed jobs giant that preceded their bitter lawsuit.
Last month, Employment Hero sued Seek, which is also one of its investors, after the $8.7 billion company blocked the startup from accessing its API. Documents released by the Federal Court late on Thursday for the first time lay out Employment Hero's version of events leading up to the legal action.
According to the documents, Employment Hero initiated talks with Seek's management in April 2022 to propose a joint venture. But the talks hit a roadblock over Seek's insistence it "could not consider any arrangement in which Employment Hero was providing a 'talent marketplace'."
Over the course of 2023, Employment Hero launched several products including employee benefits app Swag, jobs board Swag Jobs, and its AI powered recruitment tool SmartMatch, which matched employers with job seekers rather than simply posting advertisements, bringing it into closer competition with Seek.
