Apple Inc. must defend allegations that it misappropriated trade secrets belonging to Fintiv Inc. and violated federal racketeering law in building Apple Pay, after a judge in the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia denied the company's motion to dismiss on Monday, 31 August. The court found that Fintiv had plausibly alleged Apple stole its trade secrets and encouraged credit card issuers and payment processors to promote the message that Apple had created the technology underpinning Apple Pay. The judge concluded that timeliness objections could not be definitively resolved at the pleading stage, rejecting the limitations defence that formed the core of Apple's motion. A Georgia state racketeering count was dismissed as preempted by the parallel state trade secrets claim. The matter is docketed as Fintiv Inc v Apple Inc, No. 1:25-cv-04413.
The ruling follows a complaint filed in Atlanta federal court in August 2025 by Austin-based Fintiv, represented by Kasowitz LLP, alleging violations of the federal RICO Act, Georgia's RICO Act, the Defend Trade Secrets Act and Georgia's Trade Secret Act. Fintiv's claims rest on technology developed by CorFire, a company it acquired in 2014. According to the complaint, Apple met CorFire representatives on multiple occasions between 2011 and 2012 and received confidential technical information under non-disclosure agreements, ostensibly to negotiate a licensing arrangement for CorFire's mobile wallet technology. Fintiv alleges that instead of licensing the technology, Apple used the disclosed material and hired away key CorFire personnel before launching Apple Pay in 2014.
CLAIMS CENTRED ON WALLET ARCHITECTURE
Fintiv contends that core elements of Apple Pay, including secure element technology, near-field communication functionality and the trusted service management platform, were derived from CorFire's innovations. The complaint asserts that Apple never obtained a licence for the technology and has accrued tens of billions of dollars in value and revenue from the service without compensating Fintiv. The pleading characterises the conduct as corporate theft and racketeering, and seeks compensatory and punitive damages. Under Georgia's racketeering statute, Fintiv pleaded an entitlement to treble damages plus costs and attorneys' fees.
The RICO theory extends beyond Apple itself. Fintiv's complaint describes an alleged racketeering enterprise encompassing card issuers and the major payment networks that participate in Apple Pay, alleging that wire fraud and trade secret misappropriation were carried out in furtherance of a scheme to appropriate the technology. Apple is the sole named defendant. In its October 2025 motion, Apple denied wrongdoing, maintained that it developed Apple Pay independently and argued that Fintiv had alleged ordinary business relationships that fall short of the pattern of criminal conduct a RICO claim requires.
A DISPUTE WITH A LONG PROCEDURAL HISTORY
The Georgia action emerged from litigation that had run in Texas for close to seven years. Fintiv had pursued patent claims against Apple over mobile wallet software before Judge Alan Albright in the Western District of Texas, where the court twice found that Apple Pay did not infringe the disputed patent. Fintiv sought in 2020 to amend its complaint to add trade secret and contract allegations concerning CorFire material said to have been disclosed during early Apple Pay development, but the court refused the amendment. In August 2025, Fintiv voluntarily dismissed its remaining patent claims on the day trial was scheduled to begin, and Apple has argued that Fintiv failed to disclose that intention. The Georgia complaint was filed two days later.
Apple had asked the Georgia court either to transfer the case back to Texas or to dismiss it outright, arguing that Fintiv was aware of the underlying facts by 2020 and that the applicable three- and four-year limitation periods had expired well before August 2025. With that argument rejected at the pleading stage, the parties move into discovery, where the limitations question is likely to be revisited on a fuller factual record. For card issuers and networks named in Fintiv's alleged enterprise, the case raises the prospect of discovery into commercial arrangements underpinning one of the largest mobile payment platforms in operation, even though none has been sued.