Convicted engineer loses appeal on commercial espionage charges

A Chinese engineer has lost his appeal against a three-year prison sentence and 50,000 yuan (6,250 U.S. dollars) fine for commercial secret infringement in northwest China's Shaanxi Province.

Pei Guoliang, a former senior engineer with the Xi'an Heavy Machinery Research Institute, was charged with commercial espionage after he provided the institute's design drawings to another company, the Shaanxi High People's Court heard.

He was first convicted last January.

Pei copied to a computer disk the design drawings for a continuous steel casting machine which the institute had made for a steel company,according to the court.

Pei resigned from the institute in June 2002 and was soon employed as deputy general engineer by the Continuous Casting Technology Engineering Co. Ltd of China (CCTEC)in Wuhan, capital of central China's Hubei Province.

Pei completed the drawings of steel casting machine in deals worth 140 million yuan (15.5 million U.S. dollars) by making use of the data he copied from the institute, according to the court.

Police seized 1,040 design drawings from CCTEC after the institute reported the case to them. An assessment showed that the 1,040 drawings were almost the same as those of the institute.

Pei was sentenced to three years in prison and fined 50,000 yuan by the Xi'an Intermediate People's Court in January this year, which also ordered Pei and CCTEC to pay the institute 17.82 million yuan (2.2 million U.S. dollars).

The three sides, Pei, CCTEC and the institute reached a comprise regarding the compensation, according to the high court.

Source: Xinhua