[Alpha Biz= Paul Lee] A former employee of LG Energy Solution has been sentenced to three years in prison for illegally leaking a large volume of the company’s trade secrets.

The Seoul Central District Court’s Criminal Division 32 on Thursday sentenced the former employee, identified only as A, to three years’ imprisonment after finding him guilty of violating the Industrial Technology Protection Act and the Unfair Competition Prevention and Trade Secret Protection Act.

The court ruled that between 2021 and 2022, A unlawfully photographed 16 items of trade secrets related to secondary battery technology and disclosed 24 additional trade secrets through a consulting brokerage firm in the form of paid advisory services. Among the leaked materials were technologies classified as national core technologies.

The court also upheld charges that A continued paid consulting activities under an assumed identity using another person’s resident registration information after the company prohibited profit-driven consulting work.

A argued during the trial that the photographed materials lacked economic value, had already been publicly disclosed, or were not designated with security classifications, and therefore should not qualify as trade secrets under the law.

However, the court rejected the claim, stating that the materials possessed independent economic value, were not publicly known, and were classified and managed as confidential information by the company.

“The defendant unlawfully acquired and leaked national core technologies and trade secrets developed by the victim company through substantial time and effort, and disclosed them domestically and overseas for personal gain,” the court said. “The use of a proxy identity to conduct paid consulting in order to evade corporate oversight further underscores the seriousness of the offense.”

In sentencing, the court noted mitigating factors, including A’s approximately 20 years of service and contributions to the company, as well as its assessment that the leaked information was not likely to cause immediate and significant damage to the company’s technological competitiveness.

LG Energy Solution said it received a tip-off regarding the misconduct in September 2022, conducted an internal investigation, and dismissed the employee in October of that year.

 

 

 

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