Flexible Finance (operator of Flex payment services) filed a lawsuit in a Manhattan court on Monday, accusing its former CFO candidate Alex Anderson of misappropriating trade secrets and using that information to help his current employer, competitor Split Pay, expand its business. The complaint alleges that Anderson violated a confidentiality agreement during the interview process, stealing core confidential information such as Flex's financial models and strategic plans.

According to the complaint filed with the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Flex interviewed Alex Anderson for the CFO position in early 2026. Anderson previously served as a finance executive at Block, the operator of Square. However, the complaint states that Anderson was also interviewing with Flex's competitor Split Pay during nearly the same period and used his access during the interview process to "steal Flex's most valuable and closely guarded trade secrets." The complaint alleges that Anderson officially joined Split Pay as CFO in July of this year.

The complaint names Anderson and Split Pay as defendants and alleges: "What the defendants obtained was not information encountered incidentally in the ordinary course of business—but rather Flex's core financial and strategic assets, obtained through Anderson's blatant disregard of the confidentiality agreement." Flex is headquartered in New York, while Split Pay, registered as Visible Ideas, is headquartered in Miami, Florida. Both companies offer platforms that allow users to split large monthly payments (such as rent) into smaller transactions, according to their respective websites.

In the complaint filed on August 3, Flex alleges that Anderson used the interview process to "mine" the payment platform's trade secrets. The complaint shows that Anderson underwent a series of interviews with Flex's leadership team from March 25 to 27 of this year, including with the CEO, COO, and Chief Legal Officer. During the interview process, Anderson was asked to create a financial model outlining his "overall vision" for Flex's finance organization, for which both parties signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA) to share certain confidential information for Anderson to complete the task.

Details shared under the NDA included a confidential memorandum submitted to Flex's board of directors, detailing its financial models, future business plans, and strategic analysis of the company. Additionally, it included the payment company's "most sensitive financial model"—the "Flex Margin Model"—which was provided at Anderson's personal request and had never been shared with any other CFO candidate. The model contains proprietary information such as: actual forecasted financial data for Flex's business channels, detailed user data, unit network and distribution scale, and contract terms with specific business partners.

The complaint states that when Flex decided not to hire Anderson as CFO, he "turned to the competitor he had been secretly considering, using the confidential business information obtained from Flex... directly violating the NDA he signed, to benefit Flex's direct competitor." The complaint also alleges that Anderson formally interviewed for the CFO position at Split Pay around the second quarter of this year without disclosing this to Flex. Furthermore, before starting the Flex interview process, Anderson maintained ongoing relationships with key members of Split Pay's leadership team, who had previously worked together at Square.

Anderson does not appear on Split Pay's website leadership page, which lists Square alumni Andrew Borovsky and Gerard Knight as co-founders. According to Better Business Bureau (BBB) data, Borovsky serves as CEO and Knight oversees operations. Anderson's LinkedIn profile currently shows him as Head of Business Operations at Block, a position he has held since February of last year. Previously, he served as divisional CFO of Cash App and held various finance and data roles at Square. Block did not respond to requests for comment regarding Anderson's current employment status. CFO Dive could not confirm his employment status at either Split Pay or Block.

The complaint also alleges that after obtaining the confidential information, Split acted quickly to shift from its existing direct-to-consumer model to launching a business-to-business (B2B) model "strikingly similar" to Flex's, which "leveraged the confidential economic model that Flex had built through years of investment and iteration." The complaint notes that this shift was sudden for its competitor, citing an instance in March 2026 where Split CEO Borovsky told Flex founder and CEO Shragie Lichtenstein that the company was not interested in pursuing such a strategy.

After Flex suspected the information leak, it requested written assurances from Split Pay and Anderson on July 14 that they had not used the confidential information, with a response deadline of July 17. Anderson responded on July 23 but "remained silent on the critical question of whether he used or shared Flex's trade secrets," according to the complaint. As of the filing of the complaint on August 3, Split Pay had not responded or provided assurances that it had not used the confidential information.

Flex requests the court to order the return of all trade secrets, order the defendants to pay "all proceeds, profits, and benefits obtained as a result of the alleged conduct," and seek compensatory as well as punitive damages, according to the complaint. Attorneys for Split Pay, Anderson, and Flex did not immediately respond to requests for comment.