數據漏出到韓国企業事件、東芝要求１千億円賠償

A few weeks ago the Asahi News on-line reported the following:

東芝、１千億円の賠償請求　韓国企業へのデータ流出事件

2014年11月12日23時22分

　総合電機大手「東芝」の記憶媒体の研究データが韓国メーカーに流出した事件をめぐり、東芝が流出先のメーカーとデータを持ち出したとされる元技術者に、約１０９０億円の損害賠償などを求めた訴訟の第１回口頭弁論が１２日、東京地裁であった。東芝は、流出データを使って開発したとされる製品の販売差し止めも求めた。

　訴えられたのは、韓国の半導体大手「ＳＫハイニックス」と、東芝と業務提携している米半導体大手「サンディスク」の元技術者杉田吉隆被告（５３）＝不正競争防止法違反（営業秘密開示）の罪で起訴。

　この日の弁論で東芝側は、「ＳＫ社は不正取得された秘密情報だと知りながらデータを使って製造・販売し、東芝に巨額の損害を与えた」と主張。ＳＫ社と杉田被告側は請求の棄却を求めた。

　訴状で東芝側は、杉田被告が２００８年にサン社を退職した際、派遣されていた東芝の工場から研究データを持ち出し、その後就職したＳＫ社で開発に使ったとしている。

　ＳＫ社の代理人は「会社の考えは裁判を通じて主張して参ります」とコメントした。

(試譯文)

On the 12^th (November), regarding storage media research data owned by "Toshiba" being out-flowed to a Korean manufacturer, Toshiba, a major general electrical machinery company asked for damages compensation of about 109,000 million yen from its former engineer who had caused the outflow, and from the destination where the data had flowed to. The suit’s first round oral argument was held in the Tokyo District Court. Toshiba also asked for prohibition on the sales of products that were developed and manufactured using the flowed out data.

  The parties being complained about was "SK Hynix", a major Korean semiconductor company, together with Sugita Yoshitaka (53) a former engineer of "SanDisk" which was a major semiconductor company in the US that had business co-operation with Toshiba. The crime was violating the Unfair Competition Prevention Law (Trade Secret Disclosure).

  On this day in the argument the Toshiba side insisted that "while SK Company knew that their confidential information was acquired unjustly, used the data to produce and sold the products, causing a huge damage to Toshiba". From the defendant side Sugita and SK Company asked for acquittal of the charge.

In the petition, the Toshiba side complained that when Sugita retired from San company in 2008, he took away research data from a factory of Toshiba where he was sent, and used the data for development after getting a job in SK company.

An agent of SK Company made a comment that "through this trial, they will insist on the thinking of their company".

I think it would be an interesting company law case in Japan.