Struggling Fitbit now has 5 ex-employees who face criminal charges
Enlarge / The Alta HR (credit: Dave Kotinsky/Getty Images for Fitbit)
A federal grand jury has returned a criminal indictment against one current and five former Fitbit employees, accusing them of taking trade secrets from their former employer, Jawbone, to their new jobs at Fitbit.
Jawbone went out of business as of July 2017 and is currently undergoing liquidation proceedings. The two fitness gadget companies were previously staunch competitors and had sued one another multiple times.
On its own, Fitbit has its own problems, too. The company's stock price has collapsed since its $32.50 per share debut on the New York Stock Exchange roughly three years ago. Today, Fitbit stock trades at around $7.42 per share. Fitbit has lost more than $380 million from 2016 through 2017, wiping out its two earlier profitable years. Its number of devices sold has plummeted from 22.2 million in 2016 to 15.3 million in 2017.
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