Chinese Firm Faces U.S. Trial Over Stolen Secrets It Can't See

(Bloomberg) -- Documents listing DowDuPont Inc.’s secrets for manufacturing the pigment used to make white coloring are so sensitive that U.S. prosecutors aren’t allowing them to be seen by the Chinese firm accused of economic espionage in a seven-year-old criminal case headed toward a trial next year.

Prosecutors said Pangang Group, a Chinese state-owned enterprise, is seeking patent protection for chloride-route titanium dioxide production using the very secrets stolen by an ex-DuPont engineer and a California-based consultant who were both convicted and sent to prison.

“The government is especially sensitive to restrict access to these documents, which if obtained by the Pangang defendants (through inadvertence or even by state-sponsored hacking similar to that alleged against them) would do tremendous economic damage to the victim in this case,” the U.S. said Tuesday in a court filing. Prosecutors said Pangang’s attorneys can see the exhibits in a government office, but the company itself can’t view them.

Prosecutors and attorneys for Pangang told the judge in Oakland, California, who’s presiding over the case that they want to schedule a trial to begin in February 2020 that may last four to eight weeks.

To contact the reporter on this story: Pamela Maclean in San Francisco at pmaclean2@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Elizabeth Wollman at ewollman@bloomberg.net, Peter Blumberg

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