US government accuses Chinese Sinovel with “attempted corporate homicide”

The US Department of Justice said Chinese wind turbine firm stole trade secrets from a American supplier which was qualified by the government as “attempted corporate homicide”. The company called Sinovel was accused of inciting one of the US-based AMSC employees to steal copyrighted source code from a computer in Wisconsin in order to use it for its turbine business.

Sinovel used the technology in the turbines sold to customers in Massachusetts. “The fact that Sinovel has exported stolen American intellectual property from China back into the United States — less than 40 miles from our global headquarters — shows not only a blatant disrespect for intellectual property but a disregard for international trade law,” AMSC CEO Daniel McGahn said in a statement cited by CNN Money.

The software which was stolen, has a purpose of regulating the flow of electricity from turbines to electrical grids. The theft hurt AMSC with more than $800 million, according to the US Justice Department. According to the suffering company around 500 AMSC employees have lost their jobs following Sinovels “egregious and unlawful behavior,” McGahn said.

John Vaudreuil, the US attorney for Wisconsin, where the servers that held AMSC’s information are located, said: “The allegations in this indictment describe a well-planned attack on an American business by international defendants – nothing short of attempted corporate homicide.” cited by Financial Times.

If proved, the charges may cost a maximum penalty that could mean billions of dollars, and potentially long prison sentences. A conviction could carry penalties as much as $5 billion for Sinovel. The U.S. has recently adopted strategy for defending from persistent threat to the American military and economy. It has pointed out Chinas military to be in the core of unfair trade and industry practices.

“Its quite obvious now that the Chinese senior leadership understand clearly the importance of this issue to the United States,” White House National Security Adviser Tom Donilon said after the summit in which President Obama raised the issue to Chinese President Xi Jinping.