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TOP executives at Korea’s Kolon Industries have been formally charged over allegations that they stole trade secrets from US chemicals company DuPont.

The five Kolon employees are accused of stealing vital information about Kevlar – DuPont’s super-strong fibre used in body armour. It was these secrets that allegedly allowed them to develop their own proprietary version of the fibre, named Heracron, in direct competition to DuPont. If found guilty, they face up to 30 years in jail and fines of up to US$500,000.

“Kolon is accused of engaging in a massive industrial espionage campaign that allowed it to bring Heracron quickly to the market and compete directly with Kevlar,” says US Department of Justice (DoJ) attorney Neil MacBride. “The genius of free enterprise is that companies compete on the excellence of their ideas, products and services – not on theft.”

According to allegations, Kolon spent seven years targeting current and former employees at DuPont, hiring them as consultants. It would probe them for details of DuPont’s technology, including details about its manufacturing processes for Kevlar, experiment results, blueprints, designs, and the prices paid to suppliers.

“In cases where the consultants could not answer Kolon’s specific and detailed questions, Kolon allegedly requested the consultants to obtain the information from current employees at DuPont,” says the DoJ.

 The Korean company has also been accused of carrying out a similar scheme targeted at Chinese chemicals firm Teijin and its Twaron fibre, a long-running competitor to DuPont’s Kevlar.

“By allegedly conspiring to steal DuPont’s and Teijin’s intellectual property, Kolon threatened to undermine an economic engine at both companies,” adds assistant attorney general Larry Breuer. “Developing Kevlar and Twaron was resource-intensive work, and required strategic investment and ingenuity. Kolon, through its executives and employees, allegedly acted brazenly to profit off the backs of others.

Each of the executives was charged with conspiring to steal trade secrets, as well as charges of obstruction of justice for deleting information from their computers. Kolon could face a US$5m fine for conspiracy, or be forced to pay twice as much money as it made by exploiting the trade secrets.

A US court has already awarded DuPont over US$900m in compensation over the incident, with a jury finding that Kolon had “wilfully and maliciously” stolen trade secrets, and earlier this year the Korean company was barred from selling products using Heracron in the US.