DoJ indicts Hytera over conspiracy to steal Motorola secrets
The US Department of Justice (DoJ) has brought Federal indictment charges against China-based telecom company Hytera Communications, alleging that it worked with Motorola employees to steal the company’s digital mobile radio (DMR) technology.
According to court documents unsealed yesterday, the government had accused Hytera of recruiting Motorola Solutions employees in Malaysia and directed them to steal trade secrets related to the “walkie-talkies” from the company without its authorisation.
The unnamed employees allegedly accessed the trade secret information from Motorola’s internal database and sent multiple emails describing their intent to use the technology at Hytera.
The DoJ’s indictment claims that Hytera recruited these employees from 2007 to 2020, offering higher salaries in exchange for the information to help accelerate the development of its own DMR products.
Hytera and others have been indicted on 21 counts, including conspiracy to commit theft of trade secrets, which could lead to a criminal fine of three times the value of the stolen secrets, the DoJ said.
Beginning in February 2008, an employee allegedly poached by Hytera accessed approximately 11,400 of Motorola's DMR documents, including 59 documents that they had never before accessed.
In an email exchange, the indicted employee allegedly said: “We are trying to grab whatever we can. We will surely need some of them when we are there. I think we have a total of 30G [gigabytes of data] now. Do you have anything in mind that you need while we are still here? Maybe something in [Motorola's Database]. :-)”
During exit interviews, several recruited employees had not divulged that they had been hired by Hytera.
Motorola’s action
Motorola has also taken legal action of its own against Hytera in several jurisdictions. In February 2020, a jury awarded Motorola Solutions $764.6 million in compensatory and punitive damages—the maximum amount it had requested.
At the time the verdict was handed down, Greg Brown, chairman and CEO, Motorola Solutions said: “Motorola Solutions has always invested significantly in research and development to bring pioneering and beneficial technology to our customers around the world.
“In contrast, Hytera was simply profiting off of the hard work and innovation of our world-class engineers. The jury’s verdict validates our global litigation against Hytera by definitively affirming that stealing trade secrets and source code will not be tolerated.”
It also secured an injunction against Hytera in the UK in April 2020, with a London High Court freezing the UK-based assets of Hytera Communications, preventing the company from dissipating or removing assets in England and Wales up to the value of $345.7 million.
Did you enjoy reading this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories sent like this straight to your inbox
Today’s top stories
