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18 February 2015

Former Nissan employee arrested for trade secrets ‘theft’

A former employee of car maker Nissan has been arrested in Japan on suspicion of stealing the company’s trade secrets.

According to reports, Tetsuya Shibayama was arrested on Saturday (February 14) by Kanagawa Prefectural Police under Japan’s Unfair Competition Prevention Act.

Police officers said they suspect him of copying classified information about a motor show from the company’s server to his own devices between December 2013 and February 2014.

The police heard that the employee, who worked in Nissan’s global marketing strategy division until last April, said he had taken the data but did not intend to profit from them.

According to The Japan Times newspaper, after the employee was dismissed by Nissan in April for allegedly stealing the secrets, he took a job at a Chinese car company.

Last May, another former employee of Nissan was arrested by the Kanagawa Prefectural department also on suspicion of stealing trade secrets.

Kenichi Okamura allegedly copied to a private storage device about 5,000 electronic files from the company’s servers that detailed sales and marketing plans for Nissan’s X-Trail SUV. He was released in June.

Kanagawa is a prefecture (region) in southern Japan. Its capital city is Yokohama.

A spokesperson for Nissan said that the company takes the protection of its IP “very seriously”.

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