Cases from Economic Espionage Act

U.S. v. Christina Liew et al.
Northern District of California
After Husband Convicted in Dupont Economic Espionage Case, Wife Gets Probation

On September 29th, 2015, Judge White of a California federal district court accepted Christina Liew’s plea agreement, sentencing her to three years of probation and restitution to the IRS in the amount of $6 million. As part of the plea agreement, Ms. Liew pled guilty to conspiracy to tampering with evidence. Her Husband, Walter Liew, was the first person to be convicted of economic espionage by a U.S. jury in March 2014 and was sentenced to 15 years in prison.

Walter Liew was found guilty of economic espionage and trade secret theft after selling DuPont's coveted titanium dioxide (TiO2) recipe to Chinese state-owned entities. The highly guarded DuPont recipe was used for both the Oreo cream recipe, as well as the manufacturing of paper and plastics.

United States of America v. Wang Dong, Sun Kailiang, Wen Xinyu, Huang Zhenyu, Gu Chunhui
United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (Pittsburgh)
U.S. Government Files Charges Against Chinese Officials for Cybertheft of Trade Secrets

In the first time charges have ever been brought against a state actor for cyber-espionage including theft of trade secrets, the U.S. government has alleged that five Chinese Officials stole valuable information from a number of U.S. companies. The indictment, filed in the Western District of Pennsylvania, enumerates the alleged conduct, including: stealing confidential and proprietary technical and design specifications for pipes, pipe supports, and pipe routing for a Westinghouse Power Plant; stealing confidential information from SolarWorld regarding their cash flow, manufacturing metrics, production line, and costs; installing malware on U.S. Steel computers in an attempt to identify and exploit vulnerable servers; stealing network credentials for nearly every ATI employee; stealing e-mails from senior USW employees containing sensitive information about USW strategies related to pending trade disputes with China; and stealing emails from Alcoa pertaining to an agreement between Alcoa and a Chinese State Owned Enterprise.

Estimating the cost of cyber-espionage on the U.S. economy is quite tricky, but some economists have claimed the damages are on the order of tens of billions of dollars. Over the past year, the U.S. has made it clear that they will intensify their efforts to put an end to the theft. John Carlin, the Assistant A.G. for National Security, stated that “State actors engaged in cyber espionage for economic advantage are not immune from the law just because they hack under the shadow of their country’s flag.”

U.S. v. Liew
U.S. District Court California Northern District (San Francisco)
Federal Jury Convicts On Espionage Act Charges Regarding Theft of Oreo Whitening Recipe

On March 5th, 2014, a federal jury convicted Walter Lian-Heen Liew and Maegerle of economic espionage, theft of trade secrets and other charges for theft of a coveted recipe developed by DuPont which is used to whiten the cream inside Oreos. This recipe for titanium dioxide (TiO2), which can also be used for the manufacture of paper and plastic products as well, had been a closely guarded DuPont secret despite longstanding efforts by Chinese to acquire a similar recipe. This process, which uses chloride, is highly regarded as a cleaner and more efficient process than the standard industry practice of using sulfates in the manufacturing process. Historically, DuPont has taken great measures to keep this formula as a trade secret.
According to testimony from trial, Mr. Maegerle, an engineer who had been with DuPont for 35 years, disclosed the recipe to Mr. Liew who had set up a California company with the intention of producing TiO2 and selling it to the Chinese. Mr. Liew had entered into contracts with Chinese state-owned entities regarding projects which involved the use of this TiO2 technology for manufacturing purposes. After obtaining the trade secret, the defendants sold it for over $20 million.
This is the first federal jury conviction under the Espionage Act of 1996 which provides no private cause of action, but offers the government a powerful weapon in protecting intellectual property interests in the U.S. Sentencing for these individuals is scheduled for June 10, 2014 and it will be interesting to follow since there is no precedent.

United States v. Hanjuan Jin
7th Cir.
Judge Posner Upholds Trade Secret Conviction for Theft from Motorola

Hanjuan Jin lost the appeal of her conviction under the Economic Espionage Act for theft of trade secrets. She worked for Motorola from 1998 to 2007, when she was apprehended by customs with $31,000 in her luggage, a one-way ticket to China, and thousands of Motorola documents that she had downloaded. The documents described Motorola’s dated iDEN mobile communications system, which Judge Posner said is still used by “law enforcement, emergency responders, taxicab dispatchers, and the like” as well as “the Israeli and South Korean armed forces.”

Posner upheld her sentence of 48 months and said that she was lucky that the lower court gave her a “surprising break” for “acceptance of responsibility” even though she pled not guilty and went to trial. Posner believes in trade secret protection. He once said, “trade secret protection is an important part of intellectual property, a form of property that is of growing importance to the competitiveness of American industry.” Rockwell Graphic Sys., Inc. v. DEV Indus., Inc., 925 F.2d 174, 180 (7th Cir. 1991).

Posner criticized the definition of “trade secret” in the Economic Espionage Act (at 18 U.S.C. § 1839(3)(B)) as being an “elaborate” definition that permitted the defendant to challenge whether the documents that she had stolen were in fact trade secrets. He implied that the common law definition (Restatement (Third) of Unfair Competition § 39), which is a single sentence, is better.

In affirming Hanjuan Jin’s conviction, Posner emphasized that “potential value” is sufficient to a finding of trade secrets and that actual value is not a requirement, providing an analogy that may be useful to practitioners: if “a company in New Orleans had stolen the iDEN technology and was about to sell its first subscription to its brand-new iDEN network when Hurricane Katrina destroyed the company,” Motorola would still have experienced harm because Motorola would have had to upgrade its security and its reputation would have been harmed.

United States of America v. Clark Alan Roberts and Sean Edward Howley
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Sixth Circuit Vacates Defendant's Sentencing in Goodyear Trade Secret Theft Case and Remands for Re-evaluation of the Misappropriated Information

In United States v. Clark Alan Roberts and Sean Edward Howley, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit vacated the Eastern District of Tennessee’s sentencing of Roberts and Howley for seven counts related to the theft of trade secrets under the Economic Espionage Act and three counts related to wire fraud.

Roberts and Howley were both employed as engineers for Wkyo Tire Techonology (“Wyko”). Wyo made a deal to supply Chinese tiremaker HaoHua with certain tire-building parts; however, Wyko did not actually know how to create parts. Roberts and Howley leveraged Wyko’s business relationship with Goodyear Tire and Rubber co. (“Goodyear”) to surreptitiously photograph Goodyear's designs for Wyko. Roberts and Howley’s conduct was was in violation of confidentiality agreements both engineers signed with Goodyear, and a federal jury found them guilty on all counts in December, 2012.

The Sixth Circuit upheld Roberts and Howley’s convictions. However, it threw out the District Court’s lenient sentencing. The District Court erred by assigning zero value to the misappropriated trade secrets. Although it was within the District Court’s discretion to disregard the government’s expert's testimony regarding the value of the information under Daubert, it was still required to assign some value to the trade secrets.

The EEA provides guidelines for sentences, which are tied to the value of the misappropriated trade secret. Here, the District Court held the trade secrets had no value, and imposed sentences of four months of home confinement, 150 hours of community service and four years of probation for each defendant. The Sixth Circuit basically instructed the District Court that it could not artificially lower the defendants’ sentences through the “legal fiction” that the trade secrets in question were worthless (which is clearly not the case). As the Circuit Court instructed:

“Yes, all else being equal, an estimate of a substantial loss necessarily will increase the guidelines range, but it will not override the district court’s duty to exercise discretion in deciding what sentences to impose on the defendants, whether within the guidelines range or outside of it.”

United States v Agrawal
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
Second Circuit Affirms Conviction in United States v. Agrawal

On August 1, 2013, the Second Circuit upheld Samarth Agrawal's 2010 conviction under the Economic Espionage Act (EEA). Agrawal, who had been employed as a trader by the French bank Société Générale (SocGen), was charged with delivering SocGen's High Frequency Trading (HFT) system's source code to a rival hedge fund, New York-based Tower Research Capital. On November 19, 2010, a jury found Agrawal guilty on two counts: theft of trade secrets (18 U.S.C. § 1832); and interstate transportation of stolen property (18 U.S.C. § 2314). He was subsequently sentenced to 3 years’ imprisonment, which he is presently serving.

The affirmation was particularly noteworthy considering that just last year, the Second Circuit reversed a conviction in a case with strikingly similar facts. In United States v. Aleynikov, a programmer sold source code to Goldman Sachs' HFT platform to a rival trading firm. United States v. Aleynikov, 676 F.3d 71 (2d Cir. 2012). The Second Circuit distinguished Agrawal from Aleynikov in two ways. First, the court noted that the HFT system in Agrawal was used in interstate commerce, where the HFT system in Aleynikov was not. Second the court noted that where Aleynikov had stolen the HFT source code in intangible form (on a USB memory stick), Agrawal had printed out the code on paper.

In dissent, Judge Pooler took issue with these distinctions, writing, "In order to circumvent Aleynikov, decided just months prior to oral argument in this case, the majority attempts to distinguish the present facts through mischaracterizations, while simultaneously stretching Aleynikov and disregarding the principle of stare decisis."

United States v. Kolon Industries, Inc. et al.
United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia
Department of Justice Brings Criminal Trade Secret Misappropriation Charges Relating to Alleged Theft of DuPont's Kevlar™ Technology

On October 18, 2012, the Department of Justice unsealed an August 21st indictment against Kolon Industries, Inc. and five its executives (“Kolon”) in relation to Kolon’s alleged theft of E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company’s (“Dupont”) Trade Secrets. The government brought criminal trade secret misappropriation charges pursuant to the Economic Espionage Act, accusing Kolon of engaging in massive industrial espionage over a six-year period in an effort to steal Dupont’s proprietary Kevlar™ technology.

DuPont had previously brought civil charges against Kolon in relation to the same alleged misconduct, which resulted in a damage award of almost $920 million and injunctive relief. In a statement responding to the charges, Kolon’s counsel accused the DOJ of “effectively assist[ing] DuPont in improperly extending [the company’s] monopoly over [Kevlar] technology beyond the limited term provided by the U.S. Patent laws.”

United States v. Yang
United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois
Rash of EEA Prosecutions Continues with Indictment of Boeing Engineer Accused of Transmitting Trade Secrets to China

In yet another indictment in the continuing trend of prosecution of trade secret theft under the Economic Espionage Act, the government has indicted Chunlai Yang with two counts of trade secrets theft in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois (Chicago). The government asserts that Yang stole proprietary source code from his employer, CME Group Inc., in order to start his own futures exchange software company. Yang pled not guilty to both counts.

CME brought the case to the U.S. Attorney with evidence that Yang had downloaded over 1,000 source code files from the secure company computer system to his unsecure work computer. Yang then moved the files to his own personal computer. His apparent intent was to use the source code of CME’s own Globex trading system as the backbone for his own company’s system. His company was to be entitled Tongmei Futures Exchange Software Technology Co.

The potential repercussions for Yang are up to 10 years in prison and a $250,000 for each count. In addition, the government seeks to take control over Yang’s computers and other equipment and any proceeds from his actions.

The fact that CME brought the case directly to the U.S. Attorney has been touted by the U.S. Attorney’s office as a good example of corporate and law enforcement cooperation on the protection of trade secrets.

United States v. Chung
United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
9th Circuit: No Competitors Needed for Trade Secrets to Exist Under the EEA

United States v. Chung, 659 F.3d 815, 826 (9th Cir. 2011)
Docket No. 10-50074
Federal Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit
Decided: September 26, 2011, Judge Susan P. Graber

In a 2011 opinion, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the first trial court conviction under the Economic Espionage Act. Notably, the appellate court in United States v. Dongfan Chung addressed the independent economic value requirement under 18 U.S.C §1839(3)(B) as either actual or potential. In line with the statutory language, the Court asserted that the owner of secret information need not have actual competitors in order to rightfully protect its economic value.

In US v. Chung, the defendant Dongfan “Greg” Chung, a former engineer for the US-contractor Boeing, was found in possession of over 300,000 Boeing documents, including six documents containing Boeing trade secrets. On appeal of his conviction, Chun argued insufficient evidence as to the existence of any Boeing trade secrets within the documents he possessed. The court looked specifically at four Boeing documents relating to a NASA space-shuttle antenna. Judge Graber found that Boeing maintained the secrecy of the particular Boeing information and enacted reasonable protective measures to maintain secrecy. Most notably, the Court endeavored in an extensive analysis of he economic value required for such information to be trade secrets. While the EEA’s definition of trade secret is grounded upon the standard outlined in the Uniform Trade Secrets Act (UTSA), the text of §1839(3)(B) further defines the economic value of trade secret information as either actual or potential, and does not mention the existence of competitors.

The court reasons that such information “could assist a competitor in understanding how Boeing approaches problem-solving and in figuring out how best to bid on a similar project in the future, for example, by underbidding Boeing on tasks at which Boeing appears least efficient.” Thus the Court held Boeing’s secret information independently valuable not for Boeing’s potential use, but for use of such information by any potential Boeing competitor. Thus the Ninth Circuit held that under the EEA, companies need not have actual competitors in order to derive economic value from maintaining the secrecy of certain information.

United States v. Liew et al.
United States District Court for the Northern District of California
Federal prosecutors indict a state-owned Chinese company and its executive on charges of conspiracy to steal DuPont’s trade secrets

On February 7, 2012, in a rare action, federal prosecutors indicted Pangang Group Limited Company (“Pangang”), a state-owned steel manufacturer in China, and a Pangang executive on charges of conspiracy to steal DuPont’s trade secrets about titanium dioxide technology in violation of the Economic Espionage Act (EEA), 18 U.S.C. §1831 et seq. This indictment supercedes a 2011 indictment in which federal prosecutors originally charged Californians Walter and Christina Liew with witness tampering and making false statements in a federal criminal investigation into the alleged trade secrets theft. DuPont is the world’s largest manufacturer of chloride-route titanium dioxide, a white pigment used in paint, plastics and paper, and defendants allegedly made a “long-running effort” to obtain DuPont’s trade secrets about the process to benefit Chinese companies. Arraignment is scheduled for March 1, 2012.