Codemasters is suing rival developer Playground Games for "poaching staff to accelerate the development of a racing car game," reports Mail Online (thanks Develop). Word is:

Codemasters says poaching the team enabled Playground to present itself to publishers such as Microsoft and Sega as a business with substantial experience.

It also alleges that Playground, co-founded by another former Codemasters executive, Trevor Williams, disrupted Codemasters' development of its own racing games.

The writ also names 15 former employees of Codemasters, which is half-owned by private equity firm Balderton Capital.

Codemasters seeks unspecified damages and/or an account of profits in relation to Playground's actions.