Neil H MacBride, US Attorney.
ALEXANDRIA, US: South Korea-based, Kolon Industries Inc and five of its executives have been charged with stealing trade secrets from DuPont Co related to the manufacture of Kevlar, a high-strength fibre, used in production of body armour and other products.
“We are announcing charges that Kolon Industries and five of its employees, conspired to steal trade secrets from DuPont and Teijin, in a brazen attempt to profit from that very investment and ingenuity,” said Neil H MacBride, US Attorney.
For decades, Kevlar and Twaron (DuPont and Teijin products) have been essential to making body armour, fibre optic cables and other critical, industrial products. Developing these materials took hard work, was resource-intensive and required strategic investment and ingenuity. The announced indictment alleges that over a more than six-year period, Kolon conspired to steal trade secrets concerning Kevlar and Twaron so that it could develop a competing product – Heracron.
Kolon and its employees are alleged to have hired or attempted to hire, current and former employees of DuPont and Teijin as purported “Consultants,” and paid them to reveal the companies’ trade secrets.
Kolon also allegedly paid certain “consultants” to collect documents describing valuable information related to the manufacture of Kevlar, including information about DuPont’s costs, profit margins, customers and sales prices. By allegedly conspiring to steal DuPont’s and Teijin’s intellectual property, Kolon threatened to undermine an economic engine at both companies and thus found guilty of fraud conduct.
The United States threatens to take at least $226 million in assets from Kolon, which represents the gross proceeds of the company’s sales of its fabric, Heracron, as per the indictment.
© WOC News