The Taoyuan District Prosecutors’ Office has indicted a man on suspicion of stealing NT$1.944 billion (US$59.6 million) in trade secrets from his former employer and contravening the Trade Secrets Act (營業秘密法).
The man, a 60-year-old surnamed Tsou (鄒), is suspected of having copied and taken possession of 5,681 confidential HCM Co business files on the company’s materials, processes, designs and equipment development, the prosecutors’ office said in a statement on Monday.
Although the indictment covers only the theft of the secrets, prosecutors said that they were worth NT$1.944 billion and caused the company substantial losses, without explaining how they arrived at the figure.
Photo: Yu Jui-jen, Taipei Times
Prosecutors said that Tsou traveled to China with the head of a Chinese company, and they were investigating if and where he might have leaked the information.
HCM is a Taiwan-based lithium battery material supplier specializing in lithium manganese iron phosphate (LMFP) production, a key material used for electric vehicles, the company’s Web site says.
HCM is the first company in the world to mass-produce LMFP and the only cathode material factory that has equipment development capabilities and material research and development capabilities, the Web site says.
Tsou was employed at the company as a project manager in September last year. He tendered his resignation at the beginning of December and agreed to stay until the end of the month, prosecutors said.
However, he overstepped his authority, accessing the confidential files and copying them on to flash drives and hard drives from Dec. 8 to Dec. 26, they said.
HCM only became aware that its secret files had been copied and stored externally after Tsou left the company, and reported the case to prosecutors.
On April 29, prosecutors led the Taoyuan branch of the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau in a raid of the suspect’s residence and seized his flash drives and hard drives, prosecutors said.
Tsou was questioned and held in custody, they said.
Prosecutors said that Tsou contravened the Trade Secrets Act and his actions hurt the development and competitiveness of Taiwan’s high-tech industry, adding that they recommended he be given a heavy sentence.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
RSS