Brithem LLP has filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Central District of California alleging that The Toyota Mobility Foundation (TMF) and its outside consultants misappropriated trade secrets and other proprietary information of the small Zimbabwean social enterprise company Mobility for Africa (MFA), which is dedicated to improving the lives of African women and rural communities by providing a sustainable ecosystem of EV mobility. The complaint alleges that TMF and its consultants induced access to MFA’s intellectual property by promising to joint venture with MFA in providing similar mobility solutions throughout Africa. After securing that access, however, TMF and its outside consultants abandoned MFA financially and excluded it from their ongoing mobility efforts that they launched and expanded using MFA’s hard-earned intellectual property. Taking full credit for the solution, TMF bolstered its reputation and goodwill in Africa while its consultants used that technology in for-profit ventures.
The complaint asserts claims for breach of contract, fraud, breach of fiduciary duty, and misappropriation of trade secrets, among others. MFA seeks compensatory damages, restitution, disgorgement of profits, and an injunction stopping the defendants from any further use of its proprietary work. It is represented by Michael J. Bowe, Lauren Tabaksblat, and Heidi R. Goldsmith of Brithem LLP, and by David M. Stein and Nancy M. Olson of Olson Stein LLP in Newport Beach, California. The case is Mobility for Africa v. Toyota Mobility Foundation, et.al., case number 2:26-cv-05105 in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California – Western Division. A copy of the complaint is available upon request and members of MFA’s legal team are available for interviews.
“This is an indefensible exploitation of a small social enterprise company formed and dedicated to improve the lives of Africans, particularly women, by one of the most powerful companies in the world and its outside consultants who had no meaningful prior experience in Africa. This behavior belies any serious claim that Toyota really cares about the problems it says it is dedicated to alleviating. If it did really care, it would have promoted and supported this and other similarly successful social enterprise organizations and initiatives instead of simply taking the fruits of their hard work to claim as Toyota’s own for public relations purposes,” said Bowe, co-founding partner of Brithem LLP and lead counsel for MFA.
“Women entrepreneurs everywhere get only a fraction of the start-up capital that men do, and in Africa it is harder still, with most impact finance flowing to a handful of markets and a handful of companies, almost all of them led by men,” said Shantha Bloemen, MFA’s founder and managing director. “Toyota was happy to learn from our years of work building off-grid rural e-mobility in Zimbabwe. But rather than investing in the African entrepreneurs who built it, they chose to copy, replicate, and control what we created.”
The complaint alleges the defendants’ conduct has stripped MFA of the first-mover advantage it earned in a market it created and diverted grant funding by competing directly with MFA using MFA’s own data. When Bloemen raised her concerns with Toyota and its consultants, the complaint alleges, the defendants ignored her.
About Mobility for Africa
Mobility for Africa is a Mauritius-organized social enterprise operating principally in Zimbabwe. Founded by Shantha Bloemen, a 21-year UNICEF veteran, the company designs and operates electric cargo tricycles, along with the battery systems and solar-supported charging infrastructure that keep them running in off-grid conditions. Its work focuses on the women who carry most of the agricultural and household labor in rural African communities. MFA’s flagship vehicle, the Hamba, has been deployed across Zimbabwe’s Wedza District. The company has been recognized internationally with the Dubai Expo Live Innovation Grant, the EEP Africa Project of the Year Award, the Ashden Award for Energy Access, and a nomination for Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.
About Brithem LLP
Based in New York, Brithem LLP is a trial law firm that uses bold and creative advocacy to reform industries, save businesses, restore reputations, and deliver billions of dollars in value.
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