法国雷诺的工业间谍活动

Earlier I asked our senior international correspondent, Jim Bittermann what he is hearing in Pairs.

Not a lot that has been totally confirmed. But we do know a few facts. One of the things is that the three employees have been suspended. The company said this morning that they are definitely going to pursuit legal action against one or perhaps all three of the employees. We know that it's a very serious matter. The Industrial Minister said this morning that they are taking it all very seriously. And we know that it involves electric cars. Now, beyond that, there's a lot of media reporting going on here about exactly who, for instance, was getting this information that these executives may have been leaking. And on that score, that the media is reporting is that maybe some Chinese concerns that were involved getting this information. But as far as the company's concerned, very little is being confirmed. Here is what the--a senior vice president from the company had to say earlier today.

The suspension of three group executives was decided following an investigation launched by the Renault Group's compliance committee. Renault decided to take action because these are serious acts concerning people with extremely strategic positions at the Group. The investigation is underway. We are examining all legal act options which will inevitably result in legal actions.

So Max, you can see that the company is playing it very cautiously. We are expecting more information, though, over the next 3 or 4 days. In fact, the company is gonna release its result for last year on Monday and perhaps at that point in their communique

they’ll have to say something about this incident. They gonna have to sooner or later. Max?

OK, and is this a criminal case or is this an internal matter? How does it work in France?Well, at the moment it is an internal matter. But it could very well turn into a criminal case depending on what they found. One of the things that is amazing about this is apparently it's been going on since last August. The company, back then, started investigating these three employees, very highly placed employees. One of them, whom I should say is right at the top of the food chain as far as Renault is concerned. He sits on the 30-memeber-executive committee that basically reports directly to the president. So it could be very damaging for some of the senior managers including the president, because after all here is someone that was promoted up the system and then turned out to be an industrial spy.

And it really does illustrate, doesn't it? What is at stake with the new technology in an industry which is struggling to keep up with the costs of the fuel, effectively.

Absolutely. I mean one of the things is that Nissan, the partner of Renault, and Renault have been working on for several years now is this billion dollar program involving thousands of employees to develop a good electric car that is viable, that has long-distance capability, that sort of thing. They’ve got four models that are supposed to come out in 2012 and they have been working very hard at that. And these are patents, we believe, that were, this is what has been reported that there are patents that have been leak to some other companies, that, in fact they are involved with the electric cars. So, yes, there is a lot at stake. There is(are) a lot of companies around the world who are working on electric cars, trying to come up with low polluting vehicles. So yeah, it is a very big market and there's a lot of pressure.