Supply chain visibility tech providers FourKites and Project44 recently resolved two long-running legal disputes—one stemming from a defamation lawsuit five years ago and the other surrounding employee poaching.
Project44 filed the older complaint, a defamation suit regarding two emails sent in 2019 by FourKites founder and CEO Mathew Elenjickal to three individuals associated with Project44.
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FourKites filed the second, separate complaint against Project44 in 2022 over the hiring of two ex-FourKites employees.
The rival Chicago-headquartered freight tech firms did not disclose the resolutions to either complaint.
“Project44 is pleased to announce the favorable resolution of our defamation lawsuit against FourKites for its false and defamatory emails sent by Elenjickal to members of Project44’s board of directors and one of its executives,” said Project44’s general counsel, Jennifer Coyne, in a statement.
The defamation case has strange origins, surrounding emails sent to Project44’s chief revenue officer Tim Betrand and two board members, Jim Baum and Kevin Dietsel by an unknown senders.
In the e-mail to Baum and Dietsel, the sender, “Ken Adams,” wrote that he was aware of “rampant accounting improprieties” at the company. Adams wrote that Project44 employees were silenced with legal threats and defamation suits and that the company was using an executive’s family member’s affiliation with organized crime in Chicago to silence people.
Another person identified as “Jason Short” emailed Betrand and told him to flee Project44 as soon as possible and find another job, warning him that he did not “want to be part of the next Ponzi scheme or the next Theranos.”
Both senders claimed to be former Project44 employees.
After Project44 requested an examination of the Gmail accounts for Adams and Short, Google provided information finding that both emails were accessed from IP addresses associated with FourKites. The emails were tied to phone numbers listed for a FourKites corporate entity and Elenjickal.
No individual was ever proven to have sent the emails.
FourKites tried to dismiss the defamation suit in 2020, arguing that the emails lacked publication and didn’t meet standards for “per se” defamation. The Cook County Circuit Court in Illinois initially agreed with the company to grant a motion to dismiss the case, but Project44 appealed the dismissal, and the appellate court forced further proceedings.