Says Japanese Company Used New Employees To Gain Trade Secrets

Canadian planemaker Bombardier has sued Japanese manufacturing giant Mitsubishi in federal court in Seattle, WA alleging that employees hired away from Bombardier by the Japanese company sent emails containing trade secrets before going to work for their new employer.

The Seattle Times reports that, according to court documents, the suit filed late Friday afternoon alleges that Mitsubishi and its Seattle contractor AeroTEC hired about 92 employees that had been working for Bombardier at job fairs in the U.S. and Canada. The suit names several employees that allegedly leaked confidential documents and data concerning commercial airplane certification in the U.S. and Canada before switching jobs. The goal, the suit claims, was to help Mitsubishi accelerate the process of certification for its long-delayed Mitsubishi Regional Jet.

The suit said that Mitsubishi and AeroTEC hired employees ranking as high as the former director of the C-Series flight test team and the former flight test program manager. The suit also names several lower-level engineers that it says sent proprietary documents by email shortly before they left to start their new jobs.

Mitsubishi denies any wrongdoing and says it will defend itself in court. “We have been in communications with Bombardier on this matter for quite some time. We believe the allegations to be unfounded and find no merit in their assertions,” director of strategic communications Jeff Dronen said in an email to the Seattle Times.

(Image from file)

FMI: Source report