Trond Werner Hansen, a former Opera employee, has been sued by the company who alleges that he took trade secrets and gave them to Mozilla. Opera is looking to receive damages of 20 million kroner, or about $3.4 million US. Of course, Hansen denies that allegations, saying he has been "wrongly accused."
Opera's lawyer Ole E. Tokvam:
Opera is of the opinion that the former employee has acted contrary to his contractual and other legal obligations towards Opera. Among other things, we claim that he is in breach of the duty of loyalty and his contractual and statutory confidentiality obligations.
Hansen has been forced to return to Norway for a hearing in late August. "The lawsuit caused me to have to return to Norway, instead of pursuing my album release and other art projects in New York," Hansen said. Hansen has provided a lot of background information in this blog post about his employment and a "green browser" project that Opera failed to become interested in.
Firefox is remaining out of it, noting that they were not implicated in the lawsuit: "Mozilla is not being sued, and is not implicated in the lawsuit. Mr. Hansen worked for a time as an independent contractor and is no longer affiliated with Mozilla Corporation."