Former Coca-Cola employee sentenced in US for selling industry secrets Economy
1 min read
Former Coca-Cola employee and chemist Xiaorong You, 59, has been sentenced to 14 years in prison in the United States for selling trade secrets to a Chinese company.
A federal judge in Greenville, Tennessee, was convicted and fined US $ 200,000, equivalent to R $ 1 million.
The chemist, also known as Shannon Yu, was convicted by a tribunal in 2021 on charges including trade secrets, espionage and economic fraud, but his sentence was only announced on Monday.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, while working at Coca-Cola in Atlanta, Georgia, and Eastman Chemical in Kingsport, Tennessee, Georgia was able to access secret formulas related to the production of carcinogenic bisphenol A (BPA)-free beverage cans. .
According to lawyers, industrial secrets will be used in the operation of a factory in China.
The former employee was in contact with the Chinese company Weihai Jinhang Group, to which he sent information. According to the indictment, the company has received millions of dollars in grants from the Chinese government.
The stolen trade secrets are owned by major chemical and coating companies, including AkzoNobel, BASF, Dow Chemical, PPG, Toyochem, Sherwin Williams and Eastman Chemical Company, and cost $ 120 million to develop, according to the U.S. Justice Department. USA.
Xiaorong You worked as a Research Engineer at Coca-Cola from December 2012 to August 2017 and as Packaging Application Development Manager at Eastman Chemical from September 2017 to June 2018.
* With information from the AP
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