Apple has filed a lawsuit against Rivos, alleging that the little-known startup is “exploiting[ed] Apple’s most valuable trade secrets for illegal and unfair competition with Apple.”

According to the lawsuit, Reevos hired more than 40 former Apple employees during the year, of whom at least two took with them a large amount of sensitive information related to the company’s chip technology. According to Apple, this was a direct violation of the Intellectual Property Agreement, which all employees must sign at the beginning of their work and confirm when they leave.

“Starting in June 2021,” the lawsuit alleges, “Rivos launched a coordinated campaign targeting Apple employees with access to Apple’s private information and trade secrets about Apple SoCs. [system on a chip] designs. Apple immediately sent Reevos a letter informing Reevos of former Apple employees’ privacy obligations, but Reevos never responded.

“After accepting their offers from Rivos, some of these employees took gigabytes of confidential SoC specs and design files during their last days at Apple.”

Rivos is a startup company founded last year that, in its own words, is in “stealth mode.” In other words, he’s been avoiding public attention so far, rather than attracting it.

In addition to Reevos, the lawsuit names engineers Bhasi Kaitamana and Ricky Wen as “individual defendants.” It claims that Kaitamana “gathers[ed] a collection of Apple-owned and trade secret SoC files prior to the day he left Apple on August 16, 2021” and that Wen “transferred roughly 390 gigabytes from his Apple-issued computer to a personal external hard drive.”

Apple suggests that Reevos and the poached employees took steps to cover their tracks. It says it has reason to believe that Rivos instructed its employees to download encrypted apps like Signal before continuing the discussion, and claims the engineers wiped devices and deleted file history to hide their activities.

Reuters reports that Apple is seeking a permanent injunction against trade secrets and undisclosed monetary compensation. At the time of writing, none of the affected parties had responded to Reuters requests for comment.