National Bank and its subsidiary Flinks are suing two of the data aggregation fintech’s co-founders for $5.7 million, alleging their new company Deck violates a non-competition agreement.

In a lawsuit filed in Quebec Superior Court last week, National Bank and Flinks said Flinks co-founders Yves-Gabriel Lebœuf and Frédérick Lavoie gradually abandoned the fintech to start Deck after the Montreal lender acquired a majority stake in it in 2021. National Bank granted Lebœuf and Lavoie permission to work on other projects, but said the co-founders misrepresented the scope of Deck, a data aggregator that promises to let “customers connect to any web account in seconds.”

National Bank has asked the court to order Deck to cease any commercial activity involving the aggregation of financial data. La Presse first reported the news. 

In an email, Lebœuf, who is Deck’s CEO, said he and Lavoie “hold explicit written authorizations that directly contradict the allegations being made against us” and said they “have acted with full transparency.” 

Flinks plays a key role in National Bank’s open banking strategy by making the technology that connects fintechs to the lender’s secure data feed. In April, Deck raised US$12 million, saying it plans to build software that will make it possible to access data from any online portal with a user’s permission, such as utility bills, e-commerce platforms and payroll sites. The funding round came less than a year after its US$4.5 million seed round, when Deck said it was focusing on helping businesses aggregate data for sustainability reports.

National Bank is seeking $5.7 million from a combination of writing down the value of Leboeuf and Lavoie’s repurchase of their Flinks shares last year, and to recuperate the value of Deck’s alleged financial gain from violating the non-compete agreement.

Lebœuf and Lavoie registered the company that would later become Deck’s parent in 2021, gradually disengaging in Flinks in favour of Deck from 2023 to 2024, the lawsuit alleges. They sought to formally waive the requirement that they dedicate their time to Flinks exclusively in late 2023, before officially resigning in June 2024, according to the lawsuit.

At that point, Deck started offering financial data aggregation services, going beyond what they told National Bank the company would do during talks, the lawsuit claims. 

Flinks, like Deck, has ambitions of offering data aggregation services that go beyond banking, according to the lawsuit. It developed an AI-powered “context engine” that could let the fintech expand into data held by government entities, utilities or telecommunication companies, the lawsuit said.

Lebœuf provided a copy of a June letter from Deck’s lawyer Doug Mitchell, sent to the lawyer representing National Bank and Flinks in response to a formal legal notice. Mitchell said Deck does not do business in “the financial, banking, lending or investment sector,” the areas covered by the non-compete, and accused National Bank and Flinks of trying to “sabotage” Deck’s funding round last spring.

Flinks COO Dominique Samson deferred to National Bank for comment. National Bank spokesperson Alexandre Guay said the lender had no comment because the matter is before the courts.

Lebœuf said Deck plans to file a statement of defence soon.