From the Rubber Industry comes this cautionary tale: a former employee of Wacker Chemical Corp. (Adrian, Michigan) has pleaded guilty to passing formulas from his former employer to his new one, South Korea’s KCC Silicones. He was sentenced to 24 months in prison.
This employee, a manager, had earlier been disciplined in 1994 for giving chemical samples to plant visitors, in violation of company policy.
13 years after leaving Wacker, the employee was a senior scientist at Laur Silicone. He resigned, saying he was going to consult with KCC Silicones. Laur found evidence of the stolen Wacker formulas in a search of his email, and alerted Wacker (and the FBI) in 2011.
In a statement, Wacker said of its intellectual property, “We will take the appropriate and necessary steps to vigorously defend it from being compromised, either through internal or external sources, and will do so in complete accordance with Wacker corporate policy within the letter and spirit of the law,” the firm said. “We are pleased there has been a just and lawful conclusion to this case.”
The FBI says that KCC Silicones received the first Wacker formula from this employee while he was negotiating for a job with them. How smart is it to hire someone who is bringing stolen secrets, in violation of the law? How much trust could one expect from his new employer, if one got the job based on the value of stolen processes?