DuPont trade secrets thief jailed
A former employee at chemical company DuPont has been jailed after being convicted of conspiracy to steal trade secrets.
Edward Schulz was sentenced by the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, according to an FBI statement on Monday, August 17.
The statement did not disclose how long the sentence is or when it was handed down.
Schulz stopped working for DuPont in 2000 after around 30 years of employment at the company.
During his time at the company he was responsible for technical research and development into Kevlar based products, a strong synthetic fibre commonly used in body armour, automobiles and fibre optic cables.
In his position he was aware of many of the company’s trade secrets and had also signed a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), the FBI said.
After leaving DuPont, Schulz was employed by South-Korea based company Kolon Industries as a technical consultant. Kolon was interested in developing its own Kevlar-based product.
Schulz shared DuPont’s trade secrets with Kolon between 2006 and 2009.
Another former DuPont employee Michael David Mitchell was sentenced to 18 months in prison in 2009 after pleading guilty to trade secrets theft.
Mitchell, who was fired by DuPont in 2007 due to poor work performances, had also signed an NDA during his time at the company.
He was the hired by Kolon as a consultant and the company requested information concerning DuPont’s Kevlar products.
Mitchell approached employees at DuPont about the product, who then alerted DuPont’s management to attempts to misappropriate the company’s trade secrets.
Kolon was indicted by the FBI in 2012 on charges it stole DuPont’s trade secrets and applied them in its Heracron product.
In April 2015, the Virginia district court found Kolon guilty and fined the company around $360 million—$85 million covering criminal charges and $275 million in restitution.
