Legal Battle Between Joby and Archer Enters New Phase
The electric air taxi industry is fighting two battles at once. One is the race to get aircraft certified by the FAA. The other is a sprawling legal war between the sector’s two most prominent companies. The Verge reported on the escalating dispute, placing the courtroom battles between Joby, Archer, and Vertical at the centre of a deepening crisis of credibility for an industry that has been promising commercial flights for years.
The eVTOL air taxi lawsuit between Joby and Archer began in November 2025. In a complaint filed in the Superior Court of California in Santa Cruz County, Joby alleged that former employee George Kivork downloaded dozens of files before leaving the company. It claims he later sent some files to his personal email before joining Archer as a general manager. The filings cite confidential information on partnerships, regulatory strategy, vertiports, and aircraft data. Joby argues Archer used the information to pursue a major real estate developer that had an exclusive deal with the company.
Archer responded in March 2026 with counterclaims accusing Joby of presenting itself as an American manufacturer while sourcing key components through a Chinese subsidiary. The company also alleged that Joby mislabelled Chinese aircraft materials as items such as hair clips and socks to avoid US tariffs and oversight.
On June 5, US Magistrate Judge Susan Van Keulen of the Northern District of California delivered a mixed ruling. She allowed Joby’s main trade-secret claim involving the real estate developer agreement to proceed. Several other claims were dismissed, though Joby can amend them by June 22. The judge also threw out Archer’s counterclaims as “impermissible shotgun pleadings” and gave Archer until June 29 to revise them. Separately, Archer has sued UK-based Vertical Aerospace, claiming its Valo aircraft infringes Archer’s patents.
The legal costs across all three sets of proceedings are measured in millions. Meanwhile, certification timelines continue to slide. Joby is in Phase 4 of FAA Type Certification. Archer is in Phase 3 and concurrently working toward Phase 4. Neither has reached the final certification required to operate as a commercial carrier. The eIPP pilot program launched by the Trump administration in 2026 gives both companies a route to limited revenue-generating flights before full certification, but that is a stopgap, not a finish line. Archer is down 9% in 2026. Joby has lost nearly 7%. Vertical has shed approximately half its market value. Beta Technologies, which went public in November, is down more than 50% from its first day close.
