A fired Snapchat employee wants a judge to unseal information he claims shows inflated user numbers (SNAP)

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A fired Snapchat employee wants a judge to unseal information he claims shows inflated user numbers (SNAP)

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Hollis Johnson

In January, a fired Snap employee named Anthony Pompliano sued the company for allegedly "falsely misrepresenting" its user metrics to investors ahead of its IPO.

Snap quickly fired back by calling Pompliano a "disgruntled former employee" whose "sensationalist allegations" were without merit. The company also asked the court to seal Pompliano's lawsuit and return the case to private arbitration.

Now Pompliano is opposing Snap's motion to seal the details of his allegations, according to documents seen by Business Insider that his lawyers will file publicly on Tuesday in Los Angeles court.

Currently sealed portions of Pompliano's lawsuit contain user metrics that he claims are different from what Snap told investors and the press ahead of its February IPO. Pompliano is also asking that the app maker submit itself to an independent audit of its user metrics.

Pompliano served as Snap's head of growth for three weeks in 2015. He claims in his lawsuit that he was hired away from Facebook so that Snap could gain confidential information about one of its main competitors, and that he was fired under false pretenses after raising his concerns about Snapchat's metrics.

In Pompliano's opposition on Tuesday to Snap, his lawyers argue that "Snap’s outsized valuation is built on a house of cards" that has been "systematically built through a coordinated effort from Snap’s executives to personally reward themselves with billions of dollars by maliciously manipulating metrics, suppressing metrics that put the company in a negative light, and even, at times, blatantly misleading professional investors, employees, advertisers, and now, retail investors."

A Snap spokesperson told BI on Tuesday that the company will review Pompliano's opposition. Snap has said in the past that his initial lawsuit had "no merit."

This story is developing...

See Also:

• How a surprise encounter with Evan Spiegel made a software billionaire invest early in Snapchat
• UBS says Snap Inc. needs to rise to 3 critical challenges
• Facebook is copying Snapchat with these new features

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April 4, 2017 at 05:51AM