ZCZC
BCN-21
US-CHINA-ENERGY-TRADE-TECHNOLOGY
US hits Chinese firm Sinovel with $1.5 mn fine for stealing technology
WASHINGTON, July 7, 2018 (BSS/AFP) – A US court on Friday imposed the
maximum fine of $1.5 million of Chinese firm Sinovel for stealing trade
secrets from an American company producing wind turbines, the Justice
Department said.
The decision comes on the day Washington unleashed 25 percent import
tariffs on $34 billion in Chinese products to punish the country for what
President Donald Trump has said is the rampant theft of American technology.
After being charged in 2013, Sinovel was convicted in January by a US court
of stealing the trade secrets of AMSC, a US-based company formerly known as
American Superconductor, which lost $550 million and 700 jobs — more than
half its global workforce — as a result, the Justice Department said in a
statement.
The two companies this week reached a settlement and Sinovel has one year
to pay $25 million to AMSC, after paying $32.5 million this week. The Chinese
firm also will repay $850,000 to other victims.
“Rather than pay AMSC for more than $800 million in products and services
it had agreed to purchase, Sinovel instead hatched a scheme to brazenly steal
AMSC’s proprietary wind turbine technology, causing the loss of almost 700
jobs and more than $1 billion in shareholder equity at AMSC,” acting
Assistant Attorney General John Cronan said in statement.
“As demonstrated by this prosecution, intellectual property theft poses a
serious threat to American companies.”
Sinovel used the stolen technology, including software, to regulate the
flow of power from turbines to electrical grids, to produce its own wind
turbines and retrofit existing turbines, prosecutors said.
The company also hired away an AMSC engineer to help steal source code for
the key software in 2011, the statement said.
BSS/AFP/HR/1030