A sales director consulted DeepSeek and lost her job and 5 million rubles

cryptonews.ruPublished on 2026-07-27Last updated on 2026-07-27

Abstract

Moscow's Babushkinsky District Court upheld the lawful dismissal of Ekaterina Remizova, sales director at GC Energroprof, for disclosing trade secrets. The court found she forwarded tender documents and colleagues' salary data to her personal email, and uploaded protected company reports—including PowerBI analytics on deals and finances—to the AI service DeepSeek. This act alone was deemed disclosure of confidential information. Additional grounds for dismissal included revealing strategic plans, such as launching a new brand and direct generator imports from China, to a supplier. The company also cited her systematic failure to meet sales targets. Following her dismissal in 2025, Remizova sued, seeking to have the firing deemed illegal, changed to "by mutual agreement," and to receive a 5-million-ruble "golden parachute." The court rejected the main claims, ruling her actions a gross violation of duties. The parachute payment was denied as it only applied to mutual agreement or layoff scenarios. The company was ordered to pay 10,000 rubles in moral damages for one unjustified disciplinary penalty. The ruling can still be appealed. The case highlights broader data security risks: experts note that DeepSeek's "Share" function creates temporary links that can be indexed by search engines like Google, potentially exposing corporate data without malicious intent.

The Babushkinsky District Court of Moscow recognized as lawful the dismissal of sales director of GC Energoprof, Ekaterina Remizova, for disclosing commercial secrets – the employee was forwarding work documents to her personal email and uploading them to the DeepSeek neural network. This is reported by RAPSI and RIA Novosti.

Remizova worked at the company from April 18, 2025, with a salary of over 800,000 rubles per month. In September 2025, she had already faced disciplinary action, which was followed by dismissal for disclosing information protected as a secret by law.

What the employee was accused of

The employer established that Remizova sent documents regarding participation in a tender and a file with colleagues' salary data to her personal email, and also put her personal address in the blind copy field when forwarding corporate correspondence. In addition, she was uploading protected information from the company's internal resource – including PowerBI reports with statistics on deals, incoming funds, and financial performance of departments – to the third-party service DeepSeek, developed by the Chinese company of the same name.

The court emphasized: the very act of uploading commercial secrets or confidential information into the DeepSeek artificial intelligence system already constitutes disclosure of such information.

An additional basis for dismissal was the disclosure of the company's strategic plans to the supplier "Sibtorgservice": Remizova informed them of the intention to launch the "Energogram" brand on the market and establish direct supplies of generators from China, after which the counterparty stopped communicating. The employer also referred to systematic failure to meet sales targets.

The "golden parachute" demand and the outcome of the proceedings

After her dismissal, Remizova went to court demanding to recognize the order as illegal, change the grounds for dismissal to "by mutual agreement of the parties," and to recover the 5 million ruble "golden parachute" provided for in an additional agreement. The company did not admit the claim. During the process, the defendant offered a settlement agreement with a payment of over 400,000 rubles – half of the monthly salary – but the plaintiff refused it.

The court pointed out that Remizova had no operational need to extract information from the employer's protected media, send it to an uncontrolled external address, and place it on the third-party DeepSeek resource. These actions were qualified as a gross violation of labor duties.

The outcomes of the case:

  • The demand for payment of the 5 million ruble "golden parachute" was rejected, as this payment is provided only upon termination of the contract by mutual agreement of the parties or due to staff reduction;
  • One of the disciplinary penalties was deemed unjustified, and the company was ordered to pay 10,000 rubles in compensation for moral damages;
  • The remainder of the claim, including recognizing the dismissal as unlawful, was dismissed.

The court's decision on case No. 02-1545/2026 has not yet entered into legal force and can be appealed.

AI Opinion

From the perspective of machine data analysis, the Remizova case reflects only part of a broader problem: the DeepSeek service allows data leakage not only through private file uploads but also through its own Share function. Information security specialist David Konitsny discovered that the Google search engine freely indexes dialogues from the chat.deepseek.com/share/ directory, and they can be found with a simple query: site:chat.deepseek.com/share/. The system's warning that the link can be opened by "anyone who has it" says nothing about possible indexing by search engines – and it is in this gap between the expectation of privacy and the technical structure of the service that an additional risk lies for companies whose employees use such tools.

It turns out that even without malicious intent, a temporary link can turn into a permanent digital footprint containing fragments of code, work tasks, and financial data. How widespread is the practice of accidentally disclosing corporate information through such "temporary" links in other neural network services?

Related Questions

QWhat were the main reasons for Ekaterina Remizova's dismissal?

AThe main reasons for Ekaterina Remizova's dismissal were disclosing trade secrets by forwarding work documents to her personal email, uploading protected company data (including financial reports and tender details) to the DeepSeek AI service, and disclosing strategic company plans to a supplier. The court ruled that uploading such information to an external AI system like DeepSeek itself constitutes disclosure.

QWhat was the court's final ruling on Ekaterina Remizova's lawsuit?

AThe court largely sided with the employer. It rejected Remizova's demand for a 5 million ruble 'golden parachute' and refused to declare the dismissal illegal. However, it did find one of the disciplinary penalties unjustified and ordered the company to pay 10,000 rubles in moral compensation. The dismissal itself was upheld as lawful.

QWhat specific security risk related to DeepSeek is highlighted in the article's 'AI Opinion' section?

AThe article highlights that DeepSeek's 'Share' function creates temporary links for chats. However, security expert David Konizny found that Google can freely index and make these links publicly searchable via queries like 'site:chat.deepseek.com/share/'. This creates a risk where sensitive corporate data shared in such chats can become a permanent, accessible digital trace, even without malicious intent from the user.

QWhy was Ekaterina Remizova's claim for a 5 million ruble 'golden parachute' payment rejected by the court?

AHer claim was rejected because the 'golden parachute' payment, stipulated in an additional agreement, was conditional on termination by mutual agreement or staff reduction. Since she was dismissed for cause (gross violation of labor duties by disclosing trade secrets), the condition for the severance payment was not met.

QWhat actions did the court specifically qualify as a gross violation of labor duties in this case?

AThe court qualified the following actions as a gross violation: extracting information from the employer's protected resources without production necessity, sending it to an uncontrolled external (personal) email address, and placing this information on the external DeepSeek resource. These actions constituted the disclosure of protected commercial secrets.

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