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Duel of the Designers: New Industrial Espionage War Zone
Economic and commercial espionage has a much lower profile than it deserves – dangerously low. It’s an area where many companies remain unaware of their vulnerability, believing that unless they’ve invented something like a cure for the common cold, no one is likely to be interested in what they’re doing. That’s definitely not the case, for it’s often just a missing link in a chain that a competitor is after. But despite the seriousness of the matter this arena does sometimes produce the oddest of perversities. Here’s a story that takes a lot of beating, even if it doesn’t involve a commercial James Bond having a flat tyre at a crucial moment.
One of China’s major car companies, Great Wall, which is Hong Kong listed and also one of the biggest non-state motor manufacturers, has accused Fiat of secretly photographing its production line and stealing information on its new models. Perhaps there’s nothing unusual about that, but for the fact the Chinese argue that Fiat engaged in this perfidious activity while gathering evidence for its own claim that Great Wall had copied one of the Italian company’s models. This is where things get sticky, as well as perverse.
Fiat has a compact car called Panda, and an Italian court handed down a finding in 2008 that a similar vehicle called the Peri that is produced by Great Wall was in fact an imitation of the Italian model. As a result, sales of the Peri have been halted in Europe. The Chinese are currently in litigation to have that decision overturned. Meanwhile, they claim that while Fiat was gathering evidence on the Panda case, it secretly engaged in industrial espionage at one of Great Wall’s production facilities. The Chinese are now suing Fiat and they’re citing as evidence the very evidence that Fiat itself has presented to a Chinese court to prove that it was Great Wall that did the dirty deed in the first place. Now that’s the sort of convolution that gives convolution a bad name.
This doesn’t only happen to major companies in a globalised system. A firm of any size can encounter such problems, and they’re not only unamusing – they’re inordinately expensive and time-consuming. Fiat alone has lost two related cases it tried to run through the Chinese court system, only to find that Great Wall is now demanding compensation as well as an apology for the commercial espionage in which Fiat is alleged to have engaged.
There is a salutary warning in this for any manufacturer of products in which emerging economies may take an interest. Competition is ruthless and marketing tactics aggressive. You need to know what you’re up against and where your vulnerabilities lie. In the case of China, breaches of intellectual property and counterfeit products are commonplace in many industries, with Chinese companies increasingly willing to counter-sue if accused of wrongdoing.
It pays to call in a team of professionals that will not only define for you the dangers involved but also protect your company’s operations on an ongoing basis. The most experienced groups use sophisticated methods of forensic investigation and state-of-the-art technology to home in on what you’re confronting. Only when you see it at work will you appreciate just how exposed you’ve been all along.
