Thursday, July 3, 2014

Today in Business Espionage News

PA - Cumberland County-based Harsco Corp. is suing one of its former top executives in federal court, accusing him of corporate espionage for allegedly passing confidential company information to a competitor.
Clyde Kirkwood essentially acted as a mole, Harsco contends in the U.S. Middle District Court complaint it filed this week.

Kirkwood abruptly quit his post as commercial vice president for Harsco's Metals & Minerals Division in early June, three months after he secretly agreed to take an executive job with the Michigan-based Edw. C. Levy Co., Harsco's suit states.

Harsco claims that, starting early this year, Kirkwood not only passed confidential Harsco information to Levy, including data on top-level corporate decisions, he also intervened to try to steer Harsco away from international projects where it could be in competition with Levy. (more)

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Taiwan tech giant Hon Hai said today it has pulled out of a deal to buy 4G equipment from Huawei after the government warned that the Chinese company posed a national security threat.

Taiwan raised those concerns in March after Hon Hai announced the USD 178 million deal, saying telecom equipment purchased from Huawei could be used for cyber espionage. (more)


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The wife of a Chinese company’s chairman was arrested in California after she was charged in an indictment filed Wednesday in federal court in Des Moines with conspiracy to steal trade secrets from U.S. seed corn companies.


Mo Yun, 42, was arrested Tuesday in Los Angeles. She is a citizen of China. A spokesman for U.S. Attorney Nicholas Klinefeldt said he could not comment on whether she was in the U.S. on a work or visitor visa or why she was in California.


Her arrest is the latest development in a case Klinefeldt announced in December in which several employees of Beijing Dabeinong Technology Group Co., known as DNB Group, or its subsidiaries were alleged to have stolen patented seed corn from fields in Iowa and Illinois and shipped it to China to try to reproduce its traits. (more)