R&D pair sentenced over pet food secrets theft
Two former employees of a US pet food manufacturer have been sentenced to six months in prison for stealing trade secrets before joining a rival Chinese company.
Jie Zhu and Pinghua Lei both pleaded guilty and were convicted last month at the US District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.
Zhu formerly served as head of research and development at NPIC, a manufacturer of “premium natural pet treats”. He left the company for rival Gambol Pet Group in 2017, where he was hired as chief operating and technology officer.
Zhu and Lei, a former R&D process engineer at NPIC, admitted to downloading sensitive R&D-related data from NPIC’s files before their departure from the company.
The files were ultimately transferred to computers used by the two to carry out work for Gambol, where Lei was employed as a R&D manager and senior scientist.
An investigation was carried out by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and prosecuted by Andrew Stover, assistant US attorney.
Civil litigation is still ongoing between NPIC and Gambol, as well as Gambol’s Chinese-based CEO. NPIC has accused its rival of liability over Zhu and Lei’s actions.
Zhu and Lei’s sentence includes 36 months of probation following their release from prison.
Gambol owns a manufacturing and R&D plant in Shandong province, China, which it claims is the country’s biggest pet foods export enterprise.
The alleged theft of US trade secrets from Chinese companies has become a major focus of the US Department of Justice (DoJ) during the term of President Donald Trump.
The Trump administration has frequently accused Chinese firms such as Huawei of stealing US and European IP, with state backing, in order to gain a technological advantage.
Speaking to CNBC last September, Adam Hickey, deputy assistant attorney general, claimed that recent DoJ prosecutions highlighted the threat of Chinese IP theft.
“We expect other nations will want to become self-sufficient in critical technologies,” Hickey said.
But in China’s case, he said, “part of their industrial policy, part of the way they try to accomplish that is state-sponsored theft or creating an environment that rewards or turns a blind eye to it”.
China’s government has consistently rejected the claims, while Shenzhen-based Huawei has accused US officials of harassing the company employees.
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